Teaching assistant roles in supporting students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Chinese primary classrooms: divergent expectations among general education teachers and teaching assistants

Abstract

Objectives

Clarifying the roles of teaching assistants (TAs) is crucial for enhancing their support effectiveness. This study aimed to explore the differences in expectations regarding the roles of TAs between general education teachers and TAs in Chinese primary classrooms as well as the factors associated with these differences.

Methods

A sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach was employed. A total of 465 general education teachers and 400 TAs were surveyed to provide quantitative data, while five teachers and five TAs were interviewed to provide qualitative data.

Results

The quantitative survey revealed significant differences between teachers and TAs in terms of their overall expectations regarding TA roles as well as differences in the dimensions of personal care and classroom support. In particular, teachers scored significantly higher than TAs with regard to personal support; however, they scored significantly lower than TAs with respect to overall expectations and classroom support. The qualitative investigation revealed that these differences in role expectations were associated with internal (i.e., perceptions of the purpose of TA support and knowledge of student abilities) and external factors (i.e., professional training from schools and communication between teachers and TAs).

Conclusions

This study enriches the international literature on the role expectations of TAs in an inclusive education context and has important implications for their role clarification.

Keywords:

• Teaching assistants
• role expectations
• students with intellectual and developmental disabilities
• Chinese primary classrooms

Data availability statement

The data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Zhejiang Province Philosophy and Social Science Planning Youth Project (Grant 24NDQN014YB), the Jiangsu Province Education Science “14th Five-Year Plan” Project (Grant JJZL/2021/06), and the Jiangsu Province Education Science Planning Project (Grant B/2023/04/04)