A Mixed Methodology Analysis of Co-Teacher Assessments

Abstract

A mixed methodology approach was used to study the relationship between general and special educators who were co-teaching. On two co-teacher assessment instruments, sums of ratings from special educators and general elementary and secondary educators in an urban multicultural school district in the southeastern USA were similar to those obtained from a sample of early childhood specialists and early childhood educators co-teaching in Hawaii. The highest rated items on the two assessment instruments were similar in content. Interviews and observations with a subset of survey respondents corroborated the survey items. Overall, the follow-up interviews and observations corroborated and instantiated the co-teacher ratings on the survey items. Implications for teacher education are discussed.