Conceptos de Información y Teleinformática

Evidence suggests that teachers tend to leave certain schools at higher rates than others. Research also suggests different types of teachers are more likely to leave certain schools, or teaching altogether, than others. Lankford, Loeb and Wyckoff (2002) opined that high-quality teachers are more likely to leave, especially if the school serves students who are impoverished and low-

achieving. Teachers with different positions also appear to have different rates of retention. A study by Ingersoll (2001) suggests that secondary teachers, particularly those that teach mathematics and science, are more likely to leave than elementary school teachers. The author found that teachers of mathematics and science were to be more likely to leave than teachers of other subject specialties.

Luckner and Hanks (2003) examined the perceptions of a national sample of teachers of students who are deaf or hard or hearing to assess how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their jobs. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 998 teachers out of which 610 completed surveys were used for the analysis. Of the 59 items in the survey, 51 were scored as positive for the group as a whole. Data were examined by comparing the responses of four categories of teachers across the United States. The findings for these four groups were similar to those for the group as a whole. The results of the study showed that teachers of students who are deaf or hard of hearing were in general, satisfied with their jobs.

Bruster (2014) compared the perception between general and special education teachers on inclusion of students with disabilities in the mainstream setting. The study involved teachers at six rural high schools located in Northeast Georgia. Causal-comparative, quantitative study design was employed to compare the perceptions of inclusion of students with disabilities in the mainstream classroom that are held by high school general education teachers and high school special education teachers that teach in inclusive

settings. The target population of this study was all teachers, both special education and general education, who taught in inclusive classrooms in the state of Georgia. The accessible population consisted of all high school general education and special education teachers who taught in inclusive classrooms. Questionnaire was the main data collection instrument used by researcher to evaluate the perceptions of teachers toward the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education or mainstream classroom. The t-test was performed to determine if the differences between the mean scores of the two groups on the survey items occurred by chance or represented a significant statistical difference in the two groups. These results indicated a significant difference between high school general education teachers’ overall perceptions of inclusion and high school special education teachers’ overall perceptions of inclusion. Special education teachers were clearly more positive than general education teachers about the inclusion of students with disabilities, the influence of students with disabilities on the general education classroom and its students, and the management of behaviour in the inclusive classroom. However, there was no difference in teacher self-efficacy between the two groups.

Sheldrake (2013) researched into the perceptions of administrators and special needs education teachers on attrition and retention of special needs education teachers in the Mountain Park School District, United States. The purpose of the research study was to compare the view of both administrators in special needs education and their teachers on issues relating to special education teacher attrition and retention and determine if both administrators and

special education teachers identified similar causes of special needs education teachers’ attrition and strategies that impact positively on retention rates. A mixed methods descriptive study involving administrators, special needs education teachers and teachers on special assignment employed in twenty- five school districts and three Educational Service Districts. A two-way analysis of variance was conducted to test whether or not there was a significant difference between administrators and teachers perceptions of the causes of high special education teacher attrition. The analysis of the data from the two sub-groups were compared and contrasted and it was found out that administrators and special education teachers shared similar perceptions of the causes of high special education teacher attrition rates and similar perceptions of strategies to increase retention among the teachers. Therefore, the study concluded that there was no statistically significant difference between the perceptions of administrators and special education teacher with regards to their perception on the causes of high special education teacher attrition.

Otube (2004) conducted a study to determine job motivation of teachers educating learners with special needs in four provinces in Kenya. The study findings revealed that the teachers educating students with different types of disabilities were approximately motivated by similar factors. The results of the study also showed that teachers serving in special schools and integrated schools were almost equally positively motivated by similar factors. In a related study, Ngimbudzi (2009) investigated job satisfaction among secondary school teachers in Njombe District of Tanzania. The purpose of the

study was to examine the factors that are associated with teachers’ job satisfaction. The inferential statistics techniques revealed significant differences in teachers’ job satisfaction in relation to gender, age, school location and school type, but there were no significant differences in relation to marital status, teaching experience, teacher type and promotional position. Although, some special education studies have investigated differences in job satisfaction of special education teachers with regard to teaching assignments and demographic variables (age, gender, qualification experience and race) of the teachers, few studies address the differences in perception of retention on special education teachers in relation to the type of disability groups they teach. For example, the differences in job satisfaction of teachers of the Deaf and teachers of the Blind have rarely been addresses in the majority of the special education job satisfaction studies. According to Fore, Martin and Bender (2002), numerous studies using a variety of study designs have delineated the type of disabilities teachers deal with as a factor that may lead to burnout. This thesis aims to provide some empirical analysis in this field. Specifically, the present study establishes the differences in the perception of the three categories of special education teachers in Southern Ghana in relation to their job satisfaction and retention.