Anxiety of Preservice Teachers Teaching Students with Disabilities: A Preliminary Investigation

Prior to engaging in special education-related field-based coursework, preservice teachers across educational fields typically have expressed anxious feelings toward upcoming experiences in which they were to work with students with disabilities (Patrick, 1987; Rizzo & Kirkendall, 1995; Rizzo & Vispoel, 1992a; Theodorakis, Bagiatis, & Goudas, 1995; Zanandrea & Rizzo, 1998). Contributing to this anxiety are attitudes that are often less than positive prior to experiencing coursework related to special education of adapted physical education (Pugach, 2005). This makes teacher educators' jobs more difficult. Not only do teacher education programs across educational fields attempt to prepare candidates to teach effectively to students with and without disabilities, but preparation programs must find ways to alter pre-conceived attitudes of candidates that are less than positive toward working with students with disabilities (Giangreco, et al, 1993; Minke, et al., 1996; Treder, Morse, & Ferron, 2000). Within the literature on teacher education, investigators have focused on how attitudes can be changed through modifying teacher education program structures (Levin, Hibbard, & Rock, 2002) as well as the reconfiguration of individual courses (Marlowe & Maycock, 2001). By completing coursework designed to prepare candidates to teach students with disabilities, the attitudes of preservice teachers have been improved (Rizzo & Vispoel, 1992b). Having an even greater impact on attitudes than coursework is the completion of courses that have semester-long practicum experiences (Folsom-Meek, Grotelushchen, & Nearing, 1996; Hodge & Jansma, 1997; Stewart, 1990). Negative attitudes toward teaching can also hinder the confidence of teachers preparing to work with students with disabilities. Cook (2002) found that teacher candidates did not feel adequately prepared to work in classrooms in which one or more students with disabilities were present. Additionally, in an attempt to determine how a specific instructional strategy in the teacher education program affected negative attitudes toward students with disabilities, researchers concluded that the use of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) significantly changed preservice teachers' beliefs positively toward working with students with disabilities (Levin, Hibbard, & Rock, 2002). Other curricular models and instructional strategies should be investigated in order to determine ways to alleviate any anxiety and to prepare preservice teachers better for classrooms with students with disabilities. It is also important to find out if these attitudes create anxiety during teaching episodes of preservice teachers. In a preliminary attempt to find out if preservice teachers were more anxious when working with students with disabilities, six preservice teachers were followed during a semester in which they were required to teach a series of lessons to students with and without disabilities. With pre-teaching interviews of the preservice teachers, an anxiety questionnaire, and beat-by-beat heart rate graphic analyses, it was determined that the possibility existed to see evidence of contrasting anxiety levels when teaching students with and without disabilities. The Teaching Settings The six senior physical education majors were enrolled in the Adapted Physical Education survey course in the teacher education program of a mid-size university in the Southeastern United States. The same students were also enrolled in a teaching methods course intended to prepare candidates to teach physical education to elementary students. Both courses required clinical teaching experiences. The adapted course required preservice teachers to work with public school students with disabilities. These students came to the university gymnasium weekly for physical education instruction. Typically, the instruction was set up to have one teacher with 3-4 students with similar disabilities for a 45 minute time period. …