The Roles of Special Educators in Vocational Senior High Schools and the Roles of Job Coaches in Transition Services

• Main Authors: Shu-Chun Yu, 尤淑君
• Other Authors: 吳亭芳
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/724p8z

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 復健諮商研究所 === 96 === The purpose of this study was to explore the role of special educators and the role of job coaches in helping students with disabilities transiting form school to work. A self-designed questionnaire developed through extensive literature review was used to collect data. 122 special educators and 67 job coaches in Taipei City and in Taipei County replied the questionnaire and the data was analyzed by SPSS 11.5. The results indicated the followings: 1. Special educators should play significant roles in the following six professional tasks. They were “developing students’ transition plans”, “conducting related assessments”, “instructing curricula related to employment”, “implementing community-based training in jobsites”, “empowering parents and students in the process of transition”, and “coordinating professional collaboration”. However, special educators should not play the role in “providing job placement activities for students”. The roles of special educators indicated by themselves were similar with the expectations of job coaches. 2. Job coaches should play significant roles in the following five professional tasks. They were “conducting related assessments”, “instructing curricula related to employment”, “providing job placement activities for students”, “empowering parents and students become in the process of transition”, and “coordinating professional collaboration”. However, job coaches did not agree with the roles in “developing students’ transition plans” and “implementing community-based training in jobsites”, which were highly expected by special educators. 3. The expectations of special educators about themselves and job coaches varied with the areas they worked in, with their professional training, and with their cooperative experiences with job coaches. Similarly, the expectations of job coaches about themselves and special educators differed from the areas they worked in, their positions, and their cooperative experiences with special educators. 4. Both special educators and job coaches should play the roles in the following four professional tasks. They were “conducting related assessments”, “instructing curricula related to employment”, “empowering parents and students in the process of transition”, and “coordinating professional collaboration”. Special educators especially should take charge of these works. Job coaches should play significant role in providing job placement activities for students with disabilities. However, some roles in “developing students’ transition plans” and “implementing community-based training in jobsites” were not clear. Neither special educators nor job coaches want to take charges of these tasks. These tasks needed to be clarified in further studies. According to the research results, suggestions were proposed with the aspects of establishing transition services systems, increasing cooperation opportunities of special educators and job coaches, and enhancing transition competence of special educators.