Date

10-16-2025

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)

Chair

Susan Stanley

Keywords

Special education, emotional disabilities, case study, educational policy, educational reform, qualitative, self-efficacy, Alfred Bandura, mastery skills, vicarious skills, social persuasion skills, psychological feedback skills, inclusion, collaboration, secondary setting.

Disciplines

Education | Special Education and Teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this case study was to explore the self-efficacy of general education and special education teachers at XYZ school district. The theory guiding this study was Bandura’s self-efficacy theory. The central research question was: How does collaboration between general and special education teachers affect their self-efficacy when working with students with emotional disabilities? This qualitative case study explored general and special education teachers’ real-life experiences while collaborating and teaching students with emotional disabilities in the secondary inclusive classroom. The total number of participants (10) were interviewed, allowed to collaborate in focus groups, and completed a reflective letter writing task to better understand their self-efficacy for this study. The data collected were triangulated and organized in the ATLASti software system. Open coding, axial coding, and selective coding helped determine common data themes. This information could potentially impact teacher retention as well as teacher self-efficacy. Findings from this study indicate that there is potential for new policies, procedures, research, and guidelines for teacher training in productive collaborative techniques to change a teacher’s self-efficacy.

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