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Teacher Self-Efficacy and Deaf-Blindness
attitudes toward children with deaf-blindness. These
factors appeared to mediate teachers’ sense of
efficacy. In addition, the data showed that teachers,
in the absence of education and experiences
teaching a diverse and challenging group of
students, need specific supports that are varied
and particular to their situations.
Limitations
There were many limitations to this investigation
of teacher SE in deaf-blindness. For one, this was a
pilot study and, as such, marks the first attempt at
understanding the construct of SE as it relates to
teaching children with deaf-blindness. In addition,
the composition of the group of 13 teachers chosen
for the study may have contributed to themes that
emerged and the stated findings. The purposeful
sampling technique used in the selection of the
teachers yielded rich data for analysis, but it is not
possible to know how these teachers compare or
contrast to others that support learners with deafblindness.
Despite these limitations, this study
identified themes that are useful for our understanding
of the concept of teacher SE and provides
a foundation for future research on teacher efficacy
and the contextual factors that may mediate it.
Future research could replicate this study using a
different group of teachers with varying backgrounds.
Conclusion
Teachers who support children with deafblindness
are a useful population for the study of
SE given the unique challenges they face in
educating a low-incidence population of learners
with unique and specialized needs. Perhaps the
fact that there are so few children with deafblindness
and so few teachers trained to teach
these children is one reason why researchers of SE
can study factors that mediate varying levels of
teacher efficacy and the contextual factors that
affect these levels. Teachers supporting children
with deaf-blindness must go beyond the resources
they currently have, including their education,
training, and past teaching experiences, and take
a problem-solving approach to instructing these
children. A highly individualized and collaborative
approach to support children with deaf-blindness is
warranted.
The theoretical implications of this study were
limited, but analyses revealed that factors within
teachers’ environments and their own experiences
affect their sense of efficacy, which is consistent with
the model of teacher efficacy presented by
Tschannen-Moran et al. (1998). Future research
could investigate how teachers formulate and sustain
their efficacy beliefs across a career (Tschannen-
Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2002) or how teachers’
efficacy beliefs vary when supporting certain
subgroups of children with deaf-blindness (e.g.,
infants/toddlers or children with CHARGE syndrome).
Further research on teacher SE beliefs in a variety of
contexts and with a variety of students, such as
children with deaf-blindness, may contribute to this
growing corpus of work.
Practical Implications
The findings of this study may have practical
implications for those interested in teacher education,
on a preservice and in-service level, in special
education. The issues and factors that the teachers
discussed in their interviews appear to affect their
judgments of their abilities to teach. Perhaps future
research could study if teachers’ SE is affected by
providing educators resources and supports to
effectively teach these children. For example, does
teachers’ SE change when administrators give extra
release time or decrease the caseloads of individual
education plan (IEP) team members of children with
deaf-blindness? What happens to teachers’ SE to
support children with deaf-blindness if they meet more
frequently to collectively solve issues and support
each other? When outside agencies with specific
expertise in deaf-blindness support IEP teams of
children with deaf-blindness and provide them with the
on-the-job support they need, does it affect their
judgments of their capacities?
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the Spencer Foundation
and presented at the annual meeting of the American
Psychological Association in San Francisco, CA,
August 2007.
References
96 | AER Journal: Research and Practice in Visual Impairment and Blindness
Ashton, P. (1984). A motivational paradigm for effective
teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 5, 28–32.