Thread by @AllisonFGilmour

I have a new paper out in Journal of Educational Psychology with @JosephWehby – The Association Between Teaching Students with Disabilities and Teacher Turnover

psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-41…

@APA_Journals @CECDResearch #4specialeducation

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Using NC data, we examined if the % of SWDs in teachers’ classes was associated with their odds of turnover, if the association varied by disability, and if SPED cert moderated these associations using multilevel logistic regression.

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Finding 1: The % of SWDs in teachers’ classes was positively associated with the odds of turnover after accounting for teacher, classroom, and school characteristics. To illustrate, the conditional probability of turnover for teachers with 25% SWDs in their class was .04.

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Finding 2: These associations varied across disability categories. % of students with SLI was not associated with turnover. All other disability categories that we looked at were- with the strongest association being % of students with BD.

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Finding 3 (and here’s when it gets interesting!): SPED cert moderated the association between % SWD and turnover such that there was NOT an association between % SWD and turnover for these teachers.

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Finding 4: Looking at the moderation by disability category, teachers with SPED cert had LOWER odds of turnover as the % of students with LD in their classes increased. The other by disability associations were not statistically significant (magnitude for BD was still large)

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Gen. ed. certified teachers still had higher odds of turnover as % of students with LD, ID, BD, or autism increased.

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My takeaway: Teachers without SPED certification likely need more support than they’re currently being given (esp. w/ behavior) when they have SWDs in their classrooms. SPED teacher turnover is probably more about working conditions than the students they teach.

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We also looked at dual-certified teachers and those results are interesting- check out the paper for those.

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Some other notes: I owe the reviewers at JEP beverages of their choice for their help with this paper. These were the toughest reviews that I ever received, and addressing them made the paper stronger. I’m so grateful.

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Also, this was my dissertation and it was rejected at two other journals. It feels particularly great to have this out!

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