Educational helplessness in children and adolescents with mild intellectual disability in elementary, middle, and vocational schools

Children and adolescents with intellectual disability are a group atrisk of school failure. Negative experiences at school may lead to the development of learning helplessness syndrome. This article presents results of the study on educational helplessness in children and adolescents with intellectual disability who attended elementary, middle, and vocational schools. 181 pupils of special education centers with mild intellectual disability and 854 pupils of public schools were tested. The Intellectual Helplessness Scale for mathematics and the Polish language, and the Locus of Control over School Grades Scale were used. The obtained results indicate clear differences in educational helplessness in pupils from general population at different educational settings, but not in students with intellectual disability. The helplessness level for mathematics and the Polish language was significantly higher in public school pupils in comparison to pupils with intellectual disability in middle, and vocational schools. The results were interpreted regarding the specifics of the pupils’ educational environments