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- About Us
- Introduction
- Organization of the Fact Sheet
- Students' Course Taking
- Instructional Settings
- Experiences in General Education Academic Classes
- Experiences in General Education Vocational Classes
- Experiences in Nonvocational Special Education Classes
- Accommodations, Services, and Supports Provided to Students with Mental Retardation
- Students' Academic Course Grades and Achievement on Academic Assessments
- Summing Up
- List of Tables
- References
PDF & Related Info
Instructional Settings
Students with mental retardation took courses in both general and special education settings, though a significantly larger percentage took at least one course in a special education setting (92 percent) than in a general education setting (69 percent, p < .001) (table 6).10 On average, general education courses made up 31 percent of the kinds of courses taken by students with mental retardation, whereas special education courses made up 65 percent. Sixty-one percent of the overall group of students with mental retardation took nonacademic courses other than vocational education (i.e., classes in fine arts, physical education, life skills/social skills, and study skills) in a general education setting. Students were more likely to take courses in a general education setting that were nonacademic rather than academic (31 percent, p < .001) or vocational education courses (44 percent, p < .001).
Among the different levels of parent-reported cognitive functioning, 94 percent of moderate-functioning students took at least one course in a special education setting, compared with 69 percent taking at least one course in a general education setting (p < .001). All low-functioning students took at least one course in a special education setting, whereas 41 percent also took courses in a general education setting (p < .001). In contrast, no significant differences were found among high-functioning students with mental retardation. Similarly, the average proportion of courses taken in a special education setting was significantly higher than in a general education setting for moderate- (67 percent special education vs. 28 percent general education, p < .001) and low-functioning students (85 percent special education vs. 11 percent general education, p < .001), whereas the percentage of course-taking in special education or general education settings were similar for high-functioning students with mental retardation.
Regardless of the different levels of parent-reported cognitive functioning, students with mental retardation were more likely to take academic classes in a special education rather than a general education setting: 85 percent vs. 48 percent for high-functioning students (p < .001), 88 percent vs. 28 percent for moderate-functioning students (p < .001), and 90 percent vs. 7 percent for low-functioning students (p < .001). For vocational education, moderate-functioning students had a higher percentage of course-taking in special education than general education settings (56 percent vs. 31 percent, p < .001); 78 percent of low-functioning students took vocational education classes in a special education setting, compared with 16 percent in a general education setting (p < .001). For other nonacademic classes, an inverse relationship was found between the high-and low-functioning students with mental retardation; high-functioning students were more likely to take these courses in a general education than a special education setting (73 percent vs. 53 percent, p < .01), whereas low-functioning students were less likely to take these classes in a general education setting (36 percent vs. 97 percent, p < .001).
10 Testing for the significance of differences in responses to two survey items for the same individuals involves identifying for each youth the response to the two items. Responses to each item (e.g., taking at least one course in a special education setting compared with taking at least one course in a general education setting) are scored as 0 or 1. The difference between these scores produces values for individual students of +1 (responded affirmatively to the first item but not the second), 0 (responded affirmatively to both items or neither item), or -1 (responded affirmatively to the second item but not the first). The test statistic for the null hypothesis of a mean of zero for the difference score is the square of a ratio, where the numerator of the ratio is the weighted mean change score and the denominator is an estimate of the standard error of that mean. Since the ratio approaches a normal distribution by the Central Limit Theorem and sample sizes are at least 30, this test statistic approximately follows a chi-square distribution with one degree of freedom [i.e., an F(1, infinity) distribution].