PERCEPTION OF SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS TOWARDS USE OF PARAPROFESSIONALS IN TEACHING STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

ABSTRACT

The study investigated Perception of Special Education Teachers Towards Use of Paraprofessionals in Teaching Students with Disabilities: A Case Study of Some Special Schools in Benin Metropolis. Four research questions and three Hypotheses guided this study. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design in which 58 Special education teachers within 3 schools in Benin Metropolis, participated in the study. The research instrument used for data collection is tilted Perception of Special Education Teachers Towards Use of Paraprofessionals Scale (PSETTUPS) which consisted of 21 items with 4-point Likert scale of Strongly Agreed, Agreed, Disagreed, and Strongly Disagreed. The instrument was validated by the researcher’s supervisor and two other experts in the Department of Educational Evaluation and Counselling Psychology, the research instrument was subjected to a Cronbach alpha reliability which chosed a reliability coefficient of 0.865, which showed that instrument has high reliability. Data were Analyzed using frequency count, percentage mean and standard deviation, the Hypotheses were tested using Independent sample t-test and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed that; a significant majority (66%) of the teachers have a high level of perception towards the use of paraprofessionals in teaching students with disabilities. Also there was no significant difference in the perception of teachers based on their educational qualification, age and sex. The study recommended among others that; Edo State Government should employ the services of paraprofessionals to assist special education teachers.