What Do Teachers Know and Want to Know About Special Education? First presenter: Angelique Aitken, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (
[email protected]) Poster Abstract: Purpose The Council for Exceptional Children Professional Standards require that special education teachers have an understanding of the relevant special education laws and policies, which influence educating their students (CEC, 2015). Not only does a special educator provide academic, behavioral, and social skills instruction in accordance with their students' legally enforceable individualized education program (IEP) but federal and state laws (e.g., IDEA; 20 U.S.C. §§1400) have created compliance mechanisms that have intertwined legal topics with educating students. Furthermore, both parents and school administrators have reported that teachers are parents' primary source of special education information (Authors, under review and in preparation). Thus, it is important to understand teachers' knowledge of special education topics and processes. Method A convenience sample of 142 special education teachers across 16 states completed The Teacher Knowledge and Resources in Special Education (TKRSE) web-based survey. The TKRSE is comprised of 52 items across five domains and seven demographic items. The Accessibility of Resources domain had two items (e.g., Overall, how available are special education resources) rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale. Seventeen items (e.g., currently, how confident that you understand manifestation determination) were included in the Confidence in Special Education Topics domain and were each rated on a 4- point Likert-type scale. In the Areas of Desired Additional Knowledge domain, teachers were asked to identify the top topics that teachers would like to learn more about (e.g., Please identify the top three [special education law] topics you would like to learn more about).