Professional self-concept development of special education teachers

摘要

This master's degree thesis main problem is focused on professional self-concept of Slovenian special education teachers. I am trying to figure out if the professional self-concept changes due to different stages of a teacher's career.udIn the theoretical part of the thesis I have defined the term self-concept and focused mainly on teachers' professional self-concept. I present the development of self-concept with Erikson's theory of psychosocial development and how this phenomena is expressed in different stages of teacher's career, based on Phase model of Slovenian teacher's career development. I have also described the impact of professional development for teacher's self-concept and different ways for how they might encourage it.udThe empirical part of the thesis is to study professional self-concept of master's degree students of Special and rehabilitation pedagogy who study at Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana and the professional self-concept of Slovenian special education teacher's based on their years of service and their professional title. The aim is to find out their opinion on professional development and how competent they feel on each area of special education. Also the aim is to find out the ways of encouraging professional self-concept by teachers and what obstacles they face during their professional development. I also asked them for some suggestions that might help students or employed teachers boost their self-concept. udThe research information was gathered with the help of two questionnaires; the first one for the employed special education teachers and the second one for master's degree students of Special and rehabilitation pedagogy who study at Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana. I have also interviewed one person from each stage of their years of service defined by Javrh. The interviews have been analysed by the technique of open coding.udThe results showed that every single participant in the study has a positive professional self-concept and that the competence level of special education teachers is rising by each year of their years of service. They encourage their self-concept by hospitations in their own school, working together with other teachers and asking them for advice, reading texts about special education, and learning through reflection. The factors that encourage their professional self-concept the most are lifelong learning, the desire for teamwork and the desire to learn new technics to work with special needs children. The main factors that might seem like an obstacle for their professional development are lack of time because of too much work related obligations, lack of finances for professional development opportunities, lack of offered programs for developing skills in special education and lack of programs that are related to special education.udSpecial education teachers wish that additional professional development courses would be taught in schools they teach at, that more time for professional development would be included in the teacher's schedules, that financial help to visit some professional development courses would be offered and that they could interact more with other teachers special educators.ud