Exploring elementary special educators' beliefs regarding the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards: A cross-sectional survey

The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore elementary special educators' beliefs regarding the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards. This study utilized survey methods to determine the differences and similarities in the beliefs of special educators who teach students with emotional disabilities and general educators teaching in the same school buildings. The survey was distributed to 39 special education teachers and 36 general education teachers within the same eight schools in one school district. Of those surveys distributed, 69% of general education teachers' returned the survey completed and 74% of special education teachers. The special education teachers were first identified as those who teach students with emotional disabilities in the self-contained setting; eight schools in this district had such classrooms. Then, the general education teachers were selected from those eight schools. The framework for this study was constructivism and belief systems (Rokeach, 1968). Constructivist theorists, Piaget, Vygotsky and Dewey shaped our understanding that learning is a process, moving from the concrete to the abstract; students must learn through interacting with the environment and questioning across subjects as well as with peers (Dewey, 1944; Lambert, et al., 1995). With respect to belief systems, Rokeach theorized that beliefs are connected to one another, form clusters and are altered when interacting with new experiences, situations and beliefs (Greene, 1971; Rokeach, 1968).; The results of this study indicated a lack of knowledge about the NCTM Standards by the special education teachers as compared to general education teachers. Results also showed that overall teacher beliefs are aligned with the NCTM Standards. Some teachers' beliefs differed regarding various NCTM Standards, particularly when considering reading and writing numbers symbolically and when considering mathematics as a process in which students absorb information and store it in easily retrievable fragments as a result of repeated practice and reinforcement. The number of mathematics methods courses taken also differed among teacher groups. Future recommendations are included for research and professional development.