Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the opinions of teachers of the hearing-impaired children about serving as a special education teacher. The research was designed as a descriptive case study within the framework of qualitative research methods. Two criteria that the participants to be included in the study should have were determined as follows: graduating from universities’ hearing-impaired teaching programs and serving as a special education classroom teacher in schools affiliated to the MNE. The participants consist of 51 teachers meeting the specified criteria. Semi-structured interviews were held with 5 of the participants, and data were collected from 46 of them through an open-ended questionnaire. Given the pandemic period conditions we currently experience, the e-interviews were conducted using Zoom, while open-ended questionnaires were collected via Google Forms. Descriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the research data. The descriptive analysis process consists of four stages: creating a thematic framework, processing of data according to the thematic framework, identification of findings, and interpretation of findings. Study findings revealed that the fact that teachers serve out-of-field they graduated from led them to feel insufficient in terms of professional knowledge and competency. Besides, it was observed that they failed to provide sufficient benefit to the students, they had difficulties communicating with families, they failed to cooperate with the school administrators or other colleagues and could not find the necessary support.
 
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Highlights
The history of special education teaching program in Turkey goes back to the 1950s
After 29 years of neglect with certificates given through short-term in-service training, the special education teaching program was reopened in 1984 within the Anadolu University, while this was followed by the Special Education Department, which was founded in 1986 within the Gazi University Faculty of Education (Özyürek, 2008)
Two criteria that the participants to be included in the study should have were determined as follows: 1) Graduating from universities’ hearing-impaired teaching programs, 2) Serving as a special education classroom teacher in schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education (MNE)
Summary
The history of special education teaching program in Turkey goes back to the 1950s. After 29 years of neglect with certificates given through short-term in-service training, the special education teaching program was reopened in 1984 within the Anadolu University, while this was followed by the Special Education Department, which was founded in 1986 within the Gazi University Faculty of Education (Özyürek, 2008). Special education teaching programs provide training for students within 47 universities in total, including 33 state universities, 8 foundation universities, and 6 universities of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) (CHD, 2021). Teacher training programmes have continued with the Hearing-Impaired Teaching Program in the Karadeniz Technical University (KTU) in 1998 and in the Ondokuz Mayıs University (OMU) in 2001 (KTU, 2021; OMU, 2021)
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