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SCHOOL LEADERS: LACK OF TEACHER TRAINING HOLDS BACK SPECIAL ED. COMPUTER USE

January 15, 2000

Teachers must be comfortable with computer technology if students with disabilities are going to put computers and the Internet to use in class. That is the conclusion 470 out of 1,000 school administrators drew when asked by the National Center on Education Statistics in fall 1996 what is holding special ed. students back from using computers. In the data the NCES released last week, lack of adequate training for teachers was the barrier cited most often by school administrators, while administrators' attitudes toward the value of computers for students with disabilities was the barrier cited least often.

Internet use in public schools is on the rise, the NCES says. From 1994 to 1998, the number of schools with Internet access increased from 35 to 89 percent. But the number of students with disabilities using those computers and Internet connections appears to lag behind regular ed. students, the center acknowledged.

Though the NCES began its inquiry focused on money, the results of its survey pointed in a different direction. "Providing access to computers and advanced telecommunications for students with disabilities may be considerably more costly than providing access for students without disabilities, since students with disabilities may require alternative input/output devices or other costly adaptations," the NCES said. But only 38 percent of school administrators listed the availability of adaptive devices as a moderate or major barrier to computer use by students with disabilities. Thirty-four percent said there were too few computers available for those students and 39 percent said schools lacked sufficient evaluation and support services to meet the technology needs of special ed. kids.

Teacher training topped the administrators' list, just as it did the list of barriers in the informal reader poll Special Education News conducted in December. In that survey, readers were asked to select the single most important barrier to increasing computer use by students with disabilities, rather than choose all that qualify as major or moderate barriers, as the NCES survey required. More than 37 percent of Special Education News readers said teacher training is the most important barrier. Lack of funds for assistive hardware was the next most popular choice, with almost 28 percent of the votes, and the lack of effective software programs to address specific disabilities was third, with 16 percent of the vote.

According to the NCES survey, other school characteristics make the lack of teacher training even more significant in some cases. Large schools, with 1,000 or more students, were more likely than small schools, with less than 300 students, to list lack of teacher training as an issue. In addition, only 37 percent of the schools with the fewest poor students listed lack of teacher training, while 58 percent of schools with a lot of poor students complained about the training issue. Though the NCES report draws no conclusions, this suggests that schools with richer families are spending some of that money on training.

Similarly, the NCES said schools that dangled money or other incentives in front of all of their teachers had less of a problem getting them to go to computer training sessions. In schools where getting computer training is only "encouraged," with no clearly stated benefits or consequences, 52 percent of administrators said lack of training is a major or moderate barrier. Fifty percent of schools that made training mandatory considered lack of training an issue, while just 37 percent of schools that offered incentives found a lack of training as an issue.

The schools appear to agree that basic computer operation is the most important subject teachers need to learn. Of those that said lack of teacher training is an issue, 91 percent cited training in the use of computers as the specific area of deficit, and 73 percent said understanding how to integrate technology into a curriculum is a problem. Sixty-two percent said teachers need to learn how to use advanced communications devices, such as broadcast and interactive television and networked computers.

Interestingly, only 16 percent of school administrators surveyed by NCES said a moderate or major barrier to use of computers by students with disabilities was the fact that "telecommunications is not seen as relevant for many students with disabilities by administrators." In contrast, 6.4 percent of Special Education News readers said the single most important barrier is the fact that "school district policies for use of computers are too restrictive."8