Critical Skills for Special Educator Effectiveness: Which Ones Matter Most, and to Whom?

Abstract

Special education teachers are expected to fulfill diverse teaching and nonteaching tasks in comparison to their general education peers. However, their performance is evaluated with measures that were normed for use with general education teachers. These specialty teachers are also routinely evaluated by professionals who may lack formal special education training or experience. These conditions render special educators vulnerable for inaccurate performance evaluation. Explicit research is needed to clarify the professional skills that are most critical to special educators’ professional effectiveness and ensure continuity of focus on these skills in preservice teacher education and employment contexts. This qualitative study builds on an earlier empirical investigation that demonstrated consensus among three sets of professionals that the standards developed by Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC) represented skills that are critical for special education teacher effectiveness. The current study describes which skill domains were identified as critical for special education teacher effectiveness across participant groups and those that reflected distinct groups’ perspectives. Implications for future research are presented relative to strategies to more clearly articulate special education teacher expertise and ways to strengthen continuity across preservice special education teacher education and in-service professional development contexts.