전남지역 초등학교 특수학급 개별화교육계획 실태 및 개선방안

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the current status and improvement strategies of individualized education programs (IEPs) for special classes at elementary schools in Jeonnam Province. A total of 184 special class teachers participated in this study by responding to a questionnaire. The participants consisted of 113 females and 71 males; 81 teachers had less than five years of teaching experiences, while 83 teachers had more than 20 years of teaching experiences; the majority of the participants (74.5%) had less than five years' experiences of teaching children with special education needs. The questionnaire, designed for this study, consisted of three parts. The first part asked the teachers about their demographic and teacher-related variables. The second part included 26 items for examining the current state of writing, implementing, and supporting the implementation of IEP. In the third part of the questionnaire, teachers were asked to rate the level of importance in each of 10 suggestions for improving the implementation of IEP. Data were collected from June 1 to July 21, in the year of 2006. The major findings of this study were as follows: First, the participants were, for the most part, found to write IEPs in accordance with the Special Education Promotion Act and its regulations. An exception was that the majority of teachers indicated that they wrote IEPs at the beginning of a new academic year rather than before an academic year. Secondly, more than half the participants reported that they implemented some portion of the IEPs. The major type of instructional programming was found to be one-on-one instruction. Thirdly, the teachers indicated that administrators' indifference to the implementation of IEPs, perfunctory supervision, and the inactivity of IEP committees were the major problems with implementing IEPs. They were reported to believe that an IEP should be important in effectively teaching children with special education needs. Finally, the participants indicated that the effective implementation of IEPs required the development and dissemination of instructional materials, enhancement of special education teachers' competencies, and development of assessment instruments for writing IEPS. They also expressed the need to decrease the minimum and maximum number of children per special class.