Elementary music specialists teach all students in all grades at their schools, which requires the preparation of a variety of lessons simultaneously. As a result of seeing 100% of the student population, elementary music teachers host more students with disabilities than a general classroom teacher would in their class. Depending on the severity…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how certified 9th-12th grade public school teachers who have one year of teaching and implementing Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in the classroom describe their perception of PBIS and the influence of teacher perception on the implementation of PBIS with…

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies that explore the educational experiences and trajectories of English learners (ELs) and students with disabilities. The first study uses longitudinal data from four large California school districts to examine the characteristics of long-term ELs (LTELs) and former ELs--those reclassified as…

Students with disabilities benefit from opportunities where skills learned through direct instruction can be practiced and experienced within nontraditional social contexts. Direct instruction methods are important in special education, however one of the challenges with it is that students with disabilities might not gain the understanding to…

African American and Hispanic students receive more punitive school discipline than White students even when students of color commit similar infractions as Whites. Similarly, students with a disability status are more likely to experience harsher discipline in schools compared to their counterparts without a disability label. This study examines…

The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine whether learning preferences of secondary students identified with concomitant learning disabilities (LD) and emotional disturbance (ED) align with the instructional method with which they best learned mathematics. Responses to a preference survey given before and after instruction were…

Given the emphasis on promoting self-determination in the field of special education and the corresponding use of scales to measure self-determination in research and practice, it is important to examine whether widely used self-determination assessments measure the same constructs among and between students from different disability categories.…

School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) focuses on promoting social competence through the establishment of behavior expectations that are explicitly taught and reinforced by all teachers across all settings. This study investigated the validity of using adherence to SWPBS behavior expectations as a screening tool for predicting behavior…

This qualitative phenomenological research study investigated the experiences of teachers' in the general education classroom with students with emotional behavior disorders. The five questions that guided the research examined teacher's use of strategies, administration support, and need the training to educate students with emotional behavioral…

Promoting the self-determination of adolescents with disabilities has become best practice in secondary education and transition services, but to date there have been no studies establishing a causal relationship between efforts to promote self-determination and enhancement of the self-determination of youth with disabilities. This article reports…

The present study examined variables affecting teachers' perceptions of inclusionary practices for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) in three areas: inclusion of students with E/BD, behaviors of students with E/BD, and teacher efficacy. Teachers listed in the database of one Education Service Center located in north central…

How special education teachers spend their time is largely unknown. Yet conceptually, "time" is one of the most tangible and salient variables of the effective instruction literature, Carroll's model of school learning and many economic models of performance measures. This currently unknown use of teacher time has clear and important…

Questions and concerns exist regarding the exclusion of students with disabilities from statewide assessments, partly because the number of student with disabilities who are included in state assessment varies from state to state and is generally low. This contributes to a belief that accountability for all students may be misunderstood or ill…

This study examined the participation rates and performance of students classified with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) in a statewide reading assessment. Gender, ethnicity, cognitive ability, school-level socioeconomic status, and instructional setting are analyzed as factors correlated with performance. Findings indicate that only 56%…

"Response-to-Intervention" (RTI) refers to a framework for providing support to struggling learners in the general education setting. To date, RTI models have focused primarily on reading intervention and typically utilize a three-tier approach. RTI models are designed to provide high-quality instruction using evidence-based best…