Education Commons^™

Clinical Opportunities For Special Education Teacher Candidates: Developing Professional Identities That Endure Beyond Candidacy, Christine M. Davila

The Journal of Advancing Education Practice

There is an ongoing shortage of special education teachers, particularly due to early burnout. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were utilized to explore field experience needs for special education teacher candidates that positively affected their ability to maintain self-efficacy toward classroom and behavior management in self-contained settings into their early years of teaching. Findings indicated that special education teacher candidates need opportunities for experiences that allow them to imagine themselves in the role and foster professional identity development that endures beyond candidacy. Embedding opportunities for preservice special education teachers to develop their professional identities within their formal preservice training programs …