TEACHER EFFICACY AND BIAS IN SPECIAL-EDUCATION REFERRALS

This study investigated teachers' sense of efficacy and biases in their decisions to refer students to special education. Teachers (N = 240) read a case study about a student with academic difficulties and judged the appropriateness of the student's regular class placement and whether they would refer the student. Teachers were randomly assigned to one of six conditions, in which student socioeconomic status (SES) and etiology of the learning problem were varied. Findings revealed that teachers who perceive themselves as ineffectual consider regular education inappropriate for underachieving students from low-SES families; teachers who believe that they are effective do not differentiate students by SES. Further, teachers referred students whose learning problems had an unspecified etiology more than those whose problems had medically or environmentally base. Thus, teachers' referral decisions appear to be biased by variables unrelated to the specific academic difficulties of the student.