Factors that affect the instructional interactions of teachers with exceptional, at-risk and typically achieving students in integrated classrooms

grantor: University of TorontoThe purpose of this study was to examine teacher and school factors that contribute to the instructional interactions between teachers and students in integrated classrooms. A path model of teacher attitudes, resources and school support in elementary schools as causal factors in teachers' interactions with exceptional, at-risk and typically-achieving students was tested. The path model was a revision of Stanovich's (1994) model. Forty-six teachers, 170 of their students, 18 special education resource teachers, 14 principals and 25 educational assistants in a suburban school system in southern Ontario participated in the study. Classroom teachers and students were observed using an instrument developed to capture the quality of teachers' conversational interactions with individual students. Teachers completed measures of attitudes towards mainstreaming, beliefs about service delivery to exceptional and at-risk students, beliefs about teacher responsibilities in educating exceptional students, teacher efficacy and the perceived collaboration between teachers and other personnel. Special education resource teachers completed an attitudes and a collaboration measure. Also, a measure of beliefs was obtained from the principals and a measure of collaboration was completed by the educational assistants. The findings of the set of hierarchical regression analyses suggested that teachers who report collaborating closely with a special education resource teacher, and believe that they possess the requisite skiffs to positively influence students' learning, have positive attitudes towards integrating students. Such teachers who also work in supportive school contexts are more likely to conduct instructional interactions which rate higher on the scale of instructional quality than those teachers in less supportive schools, who hold less positive attitudes about integration, rate themselves as having lower self-efficacy as teachers and who work less with special education resource teachers. There were two surprising results. First, general education teachers reporting more direct collaboration with special education resource teachers in terms of instructional planning activities were observed to have fewer interactions with their students where they extended student thinking beyond checking for off task behaviours than teachers reporting less direct collaboration. Second, attitudes about integration that colleagues held in a school did not contribute significantly to the interactions teachers had with their students.Ph.D