Looking in the Rear View Mirror: A Content Analysis of Teacher Education and Special Education

Abstract

The 75th Anniversary of CEC provides an opportunity for a retrospective look at the scholarly work on special education teacher education published in this journal. In this paper, we describe a content analysis of the first 18 volumes of Teacher Education and Special Education and of all articles submitted to TESE in 1993 and 1994. Each published paper was categorized as to type, for which we developed 15 categories, and content, for which we developed 10 general descriptors. We describe the TESE literature base on both dimensions and consider changes over time. Most papers published in TESE were typified as survey research, program descriptions, or program evaluations. These paper types have been common over time, but changes have occurred for others. The analysis of submissions indicated that we receive the same kinds of papers that we publish by and large. Although the content of papers published in TESE also has changed through the years, three categories (curriculum and instruction/school practice, teachers' attributes and roles, and elements/processes of teacher education) predominated. We offer our editorial insights about the analysis and suggest directions for future research.