WHITLOWE R. GREEN COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Doctoral Proposal Defense Announcement
Teacher Efficacy in Diverse Classrooms: Investigating Student Referrals from Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds
(Summer, 2015)
Brittney Donielle Goodman
B.A., North Carolina A&T State University;
M.S., Howard University
Chair of Advisory Committee: Patricia Hoffman-Miller, Ph.D.
Public Schools in the United States are more racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse than
ever and this diversity is projected to increase. In 2014, a demographic milestone in America occurred.
For the first time minorities (Black Americans, Hispanics, and Asians) outnumbered whites among the
nation’s public school students for the first time (Fry & Krogstad, 2014). However, the racial and ethnic
demographics of educators remain comparatively unchanged. Public school systems in the United States
continue to assign a disproportionate number of culturally and linguistically diverse students to special
education programs. Black students are twice as likely to be identified with Emotional Disturbance and
2.7 times as likely to be identified with an Intellectual Disability than their White peers nationally,
whereas Native American students are nearly twice as likely to be identified with a Specific Learning
Disability and 60% more likely to be identified with an Intellectual Disability (Monroe, et al., 2009).
Hispanic students tend to be proportionally or slightly underrepresented across disability categories
nationally whereas Asian/Pacific Islander students are typically moderately underrepresented (i.e., 20% to
70% less likely to be identified as disabled in the high incidence categories) when compared to White
students (Monroe, et al., 2009).
The following research questions will guide the study:
Based on a sample of 150 teachers,
1. Is there a relationship between the teachers’ level of efficacy and the teacher referring a student
for special education services based on the student’s gender?
2. Is there a relationship between the teachers’ level of efficacy and the teacher referring a student
for special education services based on the student’s race?
3. Is there a relationship between teacher efficacy in diverse classrooms and the coursework the
teacher received regarding cultural and linguistic diversity?
4. Is there a statistically significant difference between elementary, middle school, and high
school teacher efficacy in diverse classrooms?
5. Is there a statistically significant difference between teacher efficacy in high-resource, middleresource, and low-resource schools?
The study will utilize survey research design. The independent variables in this study are the
student’s gender/ race, cultural and linguistic diverse coursework received by the the teacher, the school
level , and the resource level of each school. The dependent variable is the teacher’s level of efficacy in a
diverse classroom. With survey research, the researcher can identify beliefs, and attitudes that the
teacher possess (Creswell, 2012). Survey research also allows the research to describe trends (Creswell,
2012). The purpose of this quantitative survey study is to determine if teacher efficacy is a pronounced
factor in determining special education placement and whether this factor differs across race, gender and
grade levels. As such the design will be:
1. From a sample of 150 teachers in one urban school district, one central city suburban school
district, and one rural school district in the state of Texas, the researcher will examine the
teachers’ perceptions about their efficacy in diverse classrooms.
2. From this same sample, the researcher will determine whether or not the teachers’s level of
efficacy influence their decision to refer students for special education evaluations based on the
students gender and/or race.
Bandura’s social cognitive theory will be explored to discuss teachers’ efficacy as a
personal and a social construct and how teacher-efficacy may impact their special education referral
practices.
References
Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and
qualitative research, 4th ed. Boston: Pearson.
Fry, R. & Knogstad, J. (2014). Dept. of Ed. projects public schools will be ‘majority-minority’ this fall.
Washington DC: Pew Research Center
Monroe, S., Gould, M., Felton, R., Ladner, M., Reschly, D., Shelton, H., Zamora, P. & Hurd, W. (2009)
Minorities in Special Education. Washington DC: U.S. Commision on Civil Rights
Date: August 20, 2015
Department: Educational Leadership and Counseling
Time: 1:30 p.m.
Location/Room: 220 DELCO________________ _
Dissertation Chair:
Patricia Hoffman-Miller, Ph.D.______________ ___
Dissertation Committee Members:
Douglas Hermond, Ph.D.________________________
Bennie Graves, Ph.D., (External Committee Member) _
Tyrone Tanner, Ed D.
__
Douglas Butler, Ph.D._____________________ ____
Revised: May 14, 2012