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Virginia Tech

Preservice Physical Education Teachers' Perceptions Toward Teaching Students With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders in a General Education Setting

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

By law, physical education (PE) teachers must provide direct service to children with disabilities in the least restrictive environment, which, whenever feasible, is a regular PE class. Traditionally, the adapted physical education (APE) specialist was responsible for teaching students with severe disabilities and the PE teacher was responsible for teaching students with mild disabilities. Today, however, many students with disabilities must be taught in a regular PE setting minimizing the need for the APE specialist. Now PE teachers are having to teach all students with disabilities, but some teacher preparation programs are not providing preservice teachers with opportunities to work with these students before their student teaching experience. A qualitative study was conducted to investigate preservice PE teachers' in-class experiences teaching students with emotional/ behavioral disorders (EBD) in a general education setting. Multiple interviews and observations were conducted with four preservice teachers throughout the span of their student teaching experience to examine their thoughts, feelings, and concerns about teaching students with EBD as well as examining their interactions with these students. The participants indicated that in order to feel more qualified to teach students with EBD, they needed more experience. Further, they struggled with issues of inclusion while they encountered a gamut of emotions throughout their experiences. These findings point to the need to enhance preservice PE teachers' experiences with more related fieldwork.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph. D.
Level thesis:degree_level
doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Curriculum and Instruction
Department dc:contributor.department
Teaching and Learning
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2002

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Parker, Suzanne M.
Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Uttech, Melanie R.
  • Stratton, Richard K.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Poole, Jon R.
  • Rice, Lisa
  • Baffi, Charles R.

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-04012002-140335
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/26576

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Parker, Suzanne M.. Preservice Physical Education Teachers' Perceptions Toward Teaching Students With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders in a General Education Setting. doctoral thesis, Virginia Tech, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/26576