Special Education: Motivation of Teachers and Performance of Students

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Introduction

Special education is an important portion of an education process in any learning setting. Special education focuses on children or any other learner with some disability that requires a unique attention in the form of education dissemination. Students with disabilities are also eligible of attaining high grades in their fields of study.

This calls for special attention from the teachers that guide these students throughout their education life. A special education student can be better placed to achieve academically if well guided by his/her teacher through a specially designed program. Lack of such guidance translates to low performance of students who would score highly in their course work.

In the event of establishing this knowledge claim, motivation will be treated to cover not only teachers but also the students wit special needs in education. However, the focus shift will incline towards the teacher as a central character in the study. Besides, motivation will also be handled investigate possible courses of the lack of it, ways to motivate the teachers of special education.

Although, the study focuses on motivation as a central word in the study, another goal is to establish possible impacts of motivation to the students. Consequently, interest was developed to conduct a study to probe into the knowledge claim that there might be a relationship between special education teachers’ motivation and performance of children with special needs.

In addition, it is suspected that there may be a relationship between motivation of a special education teacher and a similar motivation of his/her student. Therefore, there is a need to establish this relationship between motivation of special education teachers and the performance of students with special education needs.

Literature Review

There is substantial literature in support of the motivation and its impacts to students in with special needs. Study has shown that people who are highly motivated in their careers are usually inclined to some goals throughout their jobs (Johnson, 2008, p. 234). This is an assertion that holds ground with regard to motivation of teachers of special education.

Besides, motivation of special education teachers has some impacts on the student with special education needs. Conrad and Serlin (2006, p. 15) established a relationship of student performance based teacher expectations. They asserted that a student who knows the expectation the teacher performs highest. The resulting link in this case ties motivation to a two dimensional outlook.

In one dimension, a student in special education program attaches performance to teacher’s expectations. On the other hand, a teacher’s motivation dictates the performance to self-motivation. Studies have shown that availability of incentives catalyzes performance of students. Thomas (2005, p.176) postulated through his studies that a relationship occurs between teacher motivation and performance of students.

He suggested the importance of incentives as a way of motivating teachers. Other studies have shown that it is not only motivation of a teacher that shapes the achievement and outcome of students, but also teacher enthusiasm (Fowler, 1997, p.201). Additionally, motivation for better outcome of the student has been given another dimension. This dimension investigates the relationship between a special education teacher and his/her student.

The outcome and type of this relationship has a sizably discernible impact on the achievement and performance of a student with special needs (Wentzel & Wigfield, p. 309). Mashek and Yost (2011) put forward an emphasis on teacher and lesson styling during teaching and its effects on student performance.

They posited that a teacher’s ability to create and make a lesson more interesting through an appropriate style shapes the outcome of a student in the subject that is taught.

Purpose of the Study and Research Questions

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between motivation of special education teacher’s motivation and their impact on the performance of students.

The students in this context refer to learners with that require special education due to disabilities. In addition, investigation of motivation covers both teacher and student. However, the impact is singly directed to the performance of the student as defined by the dual nature of the word “motivation”.

What is the relationship between motivation and performance of students with special education needs?
Are there factors that contribute to teachers’ attention of his students’ achievement needs?
To what extent does lack of motivation affect special education students’ academic outcome?
What are special education teachers’ perceptions of his/her student’s performance?

Theoretical Stance

The research will employ qualitative methods in its race to answer the research questions as posed. With respect to qualitative research design to be employed in this study, it is utterly important to cast light upon epistemological framework to be used in this study. Therefore, this study will be grounded by employment of a constructionist framework.

Studies back up this framework by positing its assertion of lack of discovery of importance. There is need to establish the relationship between performance of the students as related to the motivation by the special education. The choice of this framework best grounds the meaning in the study, based on its ability to support construction of meaning in studies.

In addition, this framework best suits this investigation since the research is centered on the motivation of special education teachers as a suspected impact of student performance in special education. The study is centered on two key figures: special education teacher and the student. In the light of the two, this study will strive to figure out the level of understanding of the motivation at the individual levels.

Aided with constructivism framework, consistence in identifying how participants constructed the understanding of the subject matter of this study is important. Therefore, constructivism is consistent with the study, as it is consistent with the purpose and research questions for this study.

Design

The research designs that will the study targets to employ are qualitative. In this design, the target population for the study has two major participants and one minor. The major participants will be special education teachers and students.

These are primarily the central participants of the study. The minor participant according to this design will be parents. We seek to establish the any existing relationship or roles that parents play. This role or roles will help to determine the motivation level and its outcome size on the performance of children with special needs.

Participants

Participants for this study will include special education teachers and their students. The research is not limited to any education level. Since the study will be investigating the impacts of motivation on the outcomes in performance of students with special needs, primary, high school, college level and university level students and teachers will be investigated.

At each level of education, the participants must meet the following demographic characteristics. In the first place, and considering primary education level, participants will be required to have reached an examinable level that, according to the education system available, is a requirement for moving to the next level of education. Precisely, in most education systems, coincides to age ranges of 12-15 years.

The gender of the students will be both male and female students. The subjects that the students study shall not be important in the investigation of the participants. The reason for the above assertion lies in the fact that this research investigates the overall performance in all the subjects under study.

Categorically therefore, these students must have completed their level of education. Similar characteristics will be applicable to students other levels of education, that is, high school, college and/or university. The only variation will be changes in the age ranges of the participants at each level of education.

Secondly, special education teachers will form another segment of participants. The gender of special education teachers will be both male and female teachers. All teachers in this participants category will be grouped according to the level of schooling that they teach. Teachers will be further split into another category for the study purposes.

The first characteristics just explained are based on general identities of teachers. To study the population further, I will include teachers who left the special education for either another profession or crossing from special education to general education.

This second category of special education teachers will also consider the age limit particularly for those who may have retired. These participants must fall within the age limit of 65 years or below.

The last category as mentioned will involve parents of the students with disabilities. The age limit of the parents is not limited to any level. The education background of the parents will not, to a large extend, be considered a necessary requirement.

The participants will be located from their respective areas of work or homes. The first category of location will target students and teachers. Teachers were classified into two categories. The first category of teachers includes those that are in service in school (primary, high school, college and/or university).

This category of teachers will be located in their respective schools when these institutions are in session. The perfect timing for this study and location will be in January when learning institutions will be opening. This time is deemed appropriate for this study because the intended teachers and students will be in session.

The second assumption for the choice of the month of January is that most students who shall have completed their level education level the previous year would be coming back for results, hence accessibility is assured.

The last category of participants is parents. Parents of sampled students will locate in their respective homes for the purposes of information gathering. This strategy is the best for the parents since it gives direct access to them as participants.

Sampling

The research will employ systematic sampling technique for the study. This method is deemed appropriate over its closest substitute. The reason that favored systematic sampling over random sampling is that it has a relatively higher degree of accuracy. Sampling as a whole process is intended to cover a period of two weeks. The target participants at the end of the sampling process are a sample size of 100 participants.

The sample selection will begin from special education institutions as mentioned. This will then be narrowed down to participants in the study. The reason for the inclusion of institutions in the sampling process is to ensure accuracy of the process. The sample scope will be at a national level. Students and teachers that will be included in the study will account for 80% of the sample size.

To begin with, 800 institutions will be selected from across the nation. From these 800 institutions, systematic sampling will be employed to randomly select 80 institutions from which the participants will be selected. The implication is that every tenth institution will be selected for sampling.

From the eighty institutions, another sampling procedure will be carried out to select 40 students and teachers. I will select the 40 students and teachers as follows. In the first place, the procedure for selection of either teachers or students is similar. Therefore, one procedure is representative. Eight students will be selected from each of randomly selected sample of 40 institutions as explained from above.

This means that every fifth institution under random sampling will yield a student for the study sample. Thus, 40 students will have been randomly selected for the study. The process of selecting teachers for the study sample will follow the above procedure. The sample for the study must be 100 participants. The explanation reveals that 20 participants are required to make up the 100^th participant.

Data Collection

Data collection from participants will involve the use of questionnaires and interviews. The data to be used in this study includes both primary and secondary data. Primary data will majorly come from the surveys and questionnaires as well as interviews. To begin with, letters requesting the selected participants to take part in the research process will be mailed.

These letters would contain requests and suggestions of interviewing venues for convenience to the participants. The following step would involve division of research team in order to cater for the diversity of research participants in terms of physical abilities and communication requirements. This is important since the participants involve students with special leaning needs or communication requirements.

These students are also diversified in their needs as special education participants. With respect to students, the research team will be composed of special education teachers that will enable the communication process to for students to take place without any breakdowns. Consequently, questionnaires will involve Braille printouts in case a blind participant is selected.

Having identified the needs for the data collection, the next stage will be to distribute the questionnaires and interview conduction. For the participants who are proximately far away, mailing service will be employed for distributing the questionnaires. Those who would feel convenient to be interviewed will employ telephones for the process.

Besides, notebooks will also be employed for the collection of data from the participants. A close follow up will be executed after the distribution of the interviews in order to increase the responses from participants. I have a high expectation that the response level from the surveys will be above 55%.

Validity and Reliability

The employed tools and methods of data collection are the ones suggested and employed for data collection and in social sciences. Therefore, the questionnaires and surveys used in this study are presumed reliable and valid based on their favored usage in such research works.

Data Analysis and Discussion

Raw data from the field interviews will be analyzed immediately to avoid lose. Since the methods of data collection are reliable, several methods of analysis are proposed. Data expected to be collected from the field will be numerically analyzed using several methods, such as graphs and tables. These methods are good for analyzing data are chosen due to their ease of interpretation of the data.

To facilitate graphical analysis of data from the field, numerical data will be summarized using tables. The tabulated results would then be represented using more advanced means like pie charts and line graphs. The second method involves the analysis of data using statistical packages like Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). These packages and many others are readily available.

Since this study seeks to establish possibility of a relationship between two variables, correlation tests will be employed to verify this allegation. They can be used to carry out several important tests on the collected data. The results from both tabulated and statistically tested data will be discussed to establish the relationship between motivation of special education teachers and the performance of their students at all levels of learning.

Threats to Internal and External Validity

This research presents a number of limitations that threaten internal and external validities of the study. In the first place, internal validity is threatened by the tendency of the collected data to be analyzed with some degree of bias. In fact, this factor not only affects internal validity of the study but also externally during the generalization of the results of the study.

Another limitation is related to the process of sample selection. During the selection of the sample, the needs specific needs of education were not put into consideration. For instance, students were selected randomly using systematic selection. Specific needs of students with disabilities may influence motivation trends for performance.

However, this study did not put into consideration such factors. Thirdly, another limitation that threatens the generalization of the results for this study is the fact that the sample chosen for this study may be relatively small.

Another limitation that was identified during this study was the lack of exploitation and usage of special education teachers in the enhancement of communication with students with special needs. More information can be collected if these teachers are utilized during the data collection process for the study.

Overcoming the Limitations

Since the above factors have been identified as limiting factors to the external and internal validities of the intended findings of this study. However, for each one of the limitation identified above, a solution is provided they would help overcome the limitations. In the first place, the data collected would be analyzed immediately in there collected form.

Manipulations to the collected will be avoided in order to limit injecting bias in the collected data. Secondly, data analysis will be done with a high degree of accuracy by the correct employment the suggested methods of data analysis as given in this study. Another aspect of limitation that is identified in this study is related to the selection of the sample.

This will be mitigated through proper monitoring of the sample selection process by use of experienced researchers or their assistants. However, this limitation is only in its theoretical form. The implication of the outgoing assertion is that it can be completely eliminated through the following means.

In the first place, the reliability of the selected sample will be validated by use of a pilot study prior to the conducting of the real research. This pilot study’s conditions will be manipulated to simulate the conditions and variables of the main research. The importance of the pilot research not only eliminates the possibility of poor sample selection but also gives the possibility of identification of many more barriers to the main research.

The study also identifies the lack of full utilization of special education teachers in the process of data collection. The research has discovered the that data collection from students with special needs experts with communicational skills. In a normal research situation, data collection process can be difficult if the teachers are not employed.

There was mention of printing of Braille questionnaires for the blind participants in the study. Since they are potential participants in the study, and the selection process was purely probabilistic, such a participant cannot be eliminated from the study because of lack communication. Therefore, they will be given a chance to express and therefore, contribute positively towards the research process.

Since there is essence in the usage of special education teachers not only as research participants but also as special research assistants, the information collection process. Besides contribution to the data collection process, bias in the data collection and analysis will be reduced. This will boost the external and internal validities of this study.

In addition, there will be provision for criticism from the academic world. This research is open to criticism in its bid to contribute to knowledge. However, this research is not an absolute end in itself. This is also one-way of increasing reliability of the study, as well as its external and internal validities.

Ethical Considerations

The research is contacted in a sensitive context with respect to participants. The participants, in particular student participants, have physical challenges, which may tempt the researchers to make unfriendly comments during the data collection process. To this, one way of mitigating such like occurrences will be ensure the confidentiality of information regarding to participants.

To ensure that no chances are taken against the participants in the research, we intend to involve the research assistants in the research through a comprehensive education program concerning the ethics in this particular study. This program will take one week.

The aspect of the training will involve training the researchers in this field on the aspect of asking non-provocative questions to the participants. this has the benefit of not breaching the ethics in the research process but also it enhances the participant’s participation in the research process. Another ethical aspect, which is critical to the success of this research, is treatment of research information with utmost confidence.

The information collected from the participants will only be used for the research purpose for which they were solicited. This shall be enhanced through non-inclusion of participants’ identification information in the final research report.

Ethical enhancement of the study will be boosted by getting any required clearances from the authorities if there is need or request to do so. This could be through conducting this study based on any human rights Act applicable for clearance.

Conclusion

This research has an ability to answer the questions that were asked. The reason for this assertion is based on the assumption that the purpose of the study is well suited and linked to the methods chosen for the study. In addition, the theoretical stance of the study supports epistemological aspect of the research questions.

In addition, the qualitative methods chosen for the study supports the methods of data collection that is intended for the study. There is a substantial link between the methods employed in the identification and hence selection of a sample from the population under study. Besides, supports of the sample selection based on the systematic random sampling ensure reduction of errors in the selection of the sample.

Data analysis methods for the study are appropriate for the creation and analysis of the data from the field. In the study, the ethical perspective of the participants has been well covered, thus enhancing reliability in the data collection process.

Reference List

Conrad, C., & Serlin, R. C. 2006. The sage handbook of for research in education. Californa: Sage Publications.

Fowler, W.J. 1997. Development in school finance. Melbourne: Diane Publishing.

Johnson, M.L. 2008. Special education teachers’ intent to remain in the teaching profession: Perceptions of special educators in Southern Dakota. Eisenhower Parkway: ProQuest LLC.

Mashek, D., & Yost, E. 2011. Empirical Research in Teaching and Learning: contributions from social psychology. West Sussex: BlackWell Publishing.

Wentzel, K,R., & Wigfield. A. 2009. Handbook of motivation at school. New York: Taylor &Francis.

Thomas, R.M. 2005. High stakes testing: coping with collateral damage. New Jersey. Routledge.

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