THE PREDICTIVE POWER OF SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS’ CAUSAL ATTRIBUTES REGARDING BEHAVIORAL ACTION STRATEGIES FOR STUDENTS WITH EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS

Abstract

Although a large body of literature exists on investigations involving special-education teachers, in terms of teaching students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) in Saudi Arabian classrooms, no known published study has investigated the causal attributions of special-education teachers regarding students with EBD in Saudi Arabian elementary classrooms. Saudi Arabian special-education teachers undergo four years of coursework to earn a bachelor’s degree in special education before teaching in schools. Meanwhile, some special-education teachers do not have a bachelor’s degree in that field. Instead, they obtain a diploma in special education through a shortened program that lasts between one and two years. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate special-education teachers’ causal attributions regarding their emotional (locus of causality, stability, and controllability) and behavioral (supportive and unsupportive) action strategies for dealing with students with EBD in elementary classrooms in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This quantitative study sought to investigate the factors that are integral to the purpose of this research and to answer four research questions. A comprehensive review of the theoretical and empirical literature related to the research was conducted. Theoretically, this study adopted the attribution theory of motivation and emotion by Bernard Weiner (1985) as its framework. Data collected through vignette measures and surveys with Likert-type scales, to investigate special-education teachers’ causal attributions and their behavioral-action strategies for students with EBD. The participants in this study comprised approximately 1,409 male and female elementary special-education teachers serving students with EBD, in 1,954 elementary schools. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences software used to analyze the data for the study. Descriptive statistics, correlation, and direct logistic regression techniques utilized to answer the four research questions. The results of this study found the special-education teachers controllability was likely the strongest predictor of associated supportive behavioral action strategies, recording an odds ratio (OR) of 1.08. However, the less likely predictors of reporting a causal attribution were locus of causality and stability, recording an odds ratio (OR) of.98 and .89, respectively.