Teacher perceptions of the mathematical potential of students in special education in the Netherlands

Abstract

Research has shown that high expectations of teachers about their students’ academic development have a positive influence on how these students actually develop. Therefore, when aiming to improve students’ learning results it is essential to know how teachers think about their students’ abilities. The present study was meant to investigate what perceptions primary school teachers in special education have of their students’ potential in mathematics and what possibilities they see to reveal this potential. Data were collected through an online questionnaire. Surprisingly, the responses showed that, although the teachers teach students with low achievement scores in mathematics, most of the teachers were positive about the mathematical potential of their students. The teachers often attributed unused potential to causes outside the student and they underpinned this view with observations from school practice. The article concludes with discussing the consequences of these findings for the professional development of teachers.

Keywords:

• teacher perceptions
• teacher expectations
• primary special education
• student abilities
• online teacher survey

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the teachers whose participation made this study possible.

Notes

1. Combinatorics is the domain of mathematics that involves systematic listing and counting and is based on the so-called ‘fundamental counting principle’. This principle describes how to determine the total possible choices when combining groups of items. If you can choose one item from a group of a choices, and another from a group of b choices, then the total number of two-item choices is a × b.

2. The teacher quotes used in the text were translated from Dutch to English by the authors of this paper. In addition, a translator checked the authors’ translations, and made corrections if necessary.