Students’ experiences and views on co-teaching: a systematic review

Strogilos, Vasilis, King-Sears, Margaret, Tragoulia, Eleni and Toulia, Anastasia (2024) Students’ experiences and views on co-teaching: a systematic review. In European Conference in Educational Research. (In Press)

Abstract

Following the international inclusion movement, co-teaching between special and general educators has appeared as one approach to the education of students with and without disabilities in the general education classroom (Strogilos et al., 2017). Co-teaching consists of general and special educators partnering to plan, deliver, and assess instruction in a general education class where, together, they teach students with and without disabilities (Friend et al., 2010). Research on co-teaching has extensively grown in the last decades, due to the increasing number of schools which are educating students with disabilities in co-taught classrooms.
Research on co-teaching has focused on its process and impact and especially the use of co-teaching models by the two educators. Seminal studies on co-teaching noted that during co-teaching both educators should be responsible for ‘instructional planning and delivery, assessment of student achievement, and classroom management’ (Nevin at al., 2008, p. 284), and highlighted that educators’ collaboration is paramount in responding to students’ needs (Thousand et al., 2006). Cook and Friend (1995) proposed a number of co-teaching models that co-teachers can select to group their students and to deliver instruction: one teacher leading while the other assists or observes (one-teach, one-assist/ observe/ circulate); both educators share the planning and delivering of instruction by each leading instruction (team teaching), the two teachers dividing students in half (parallel or alternative teaching); and dividing students in stations (station teaching).
Systematic reviews on co-teaching:
The last 20 years a number of reviews have been published mainly to describe teachers’ views on co-teaching (Iacono et al., 2021; Paulsrud & Nilholm, 2020; Scruggs et al., 2007; Solis et al., 2012; Strogilos et al., 2023; Van Garderen et al., 2012) or their students’ academic outcomes (King-Sears et al., 2021; Stefanidis et al., 2023). Only one review describes students’ perception on co-teaching (Wagner et al., 2023), which focuses on the identification of contextual variables surrounding co-teaching and some of its benefits and challenges. In some countries (e.g., England; DfE, 2015), the law requires the involvement of students with disabilities in decisions pertaining their education to empower a historically silenced group. Although the concept of ‘student voice’ has received increased attention, their participation in research studies depends on adult researchers’ perspectives on students’ ability to exercise influence upon their social world (Christensen & Prout, 2005). Students with and without disabilities who are educated in co-taught classes can provide valuable feedback about these experiences, which can be useful for not only researchers but for co-teachers and other school personnel striving to set up effective co-taught classes (e.g., Embury & Kroeger, 2012). Indeed, as more researchers establish lines of research that include students with and without disabilities in their studies (e.g., Leafstedt et al., 2007; Ronn-Lijenfeldt et al., 2023), students are important contributors about what does and does not promote their learning when co-taught.
A systematic review on students’ views on co-teaching to synthesise all the different themes that have appeared in research studies is currently missing. The main aim of the present systematic review is to describe students’ views about a plethora of features that contribute towards students’ academic and social success in co-taught classrooms and to highlight valuable implications for policy, practice and research to improve co-teaching. The review is guided by the following research questions: What are the views of students with and without disabilities about co-teaching? What improvements can be made on co-teaching based on students’ feedback?

Methods
To identify studies, we undertook computerised searches in EBSCO, ERIC, Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson), Open Dissertations, ProQuest Dissertations and Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science. The search dates were between June 2023 and January 1990. We used the search terms: “coteach*”; “co-teaching”; “cooperative teaching”; “co-operative teaching”; “team teaching”; and “collaborative teaching” with the boolean operator “or” between the terms to search related titles, abstracts and keywords. “Calls to the field” for unpublished studies via social media and emails to organisations (e.g., AERA). References in eligible articles were hand-searched. Two authors independently examined titles, abstracts, and full texts. The inter-rater reliability for determining eligible studies was 87%. Another author scrutinised discrepancies to 100% consensus.
Eligible criteria included: (a) original published or unpublished studies with primary data from students with and/or without disabilities in co-taught classrooms; (b) K-12 grades; (c) students received instruction from general and special educators as co-teachers; (d) in English; (e) when other participants in the study (e.g., parents, teachers), data from the students were disaggregated. Exclusion criteria included: (a) research with student data that was about inclusion but not about co-teaching; (b) data from others (e.g., co-teachers) was aggregated with the student data such that disaggregation could not occur; (c) students were preservice teachers rather than in K-12 grades; (d) general and special educators as part of a larger team working together but not co-teaching; (e) research featuring student’s academic achievement (e.g., standardized tests) only; (f) research in which co-teaching appeared in the findings but was not in the research aims/questions; and (g) studies which featured students responding to social validity surveys, with queries about aspects of a newly implemented intervention. For studies which featured other participants (e.g., co-teachers), only the portion featuring students was included.
There were 15,203 records identified from the search; 8,758 were excluded due to repetition. The 6,445 records remaining were screened by title and abstract. After excluding non-related articles, full-text search occurred for 179 studies, with 68 considered eligible.
Each study was reviewed for quality using either the Critical Appraisal Skills Program tool/checklist (CASP, 2018) for qualitative studies, or the checklist to assess quality of survey studies (Protogerou & Hagger, 2020). Findings included descriptive statistics and correlations from surveys, and themes from interviews and other qualitative methods. We employed thematic analysis (Braun et al., 2019) to elicit themes from the primary studies and to produce a narrative synthesis.
Conclusions, expected outcomes or findings
Our preliminary analysis elicited eight main themes about students’ views on co-teaching: Models of co-teaching, prevalence, and student preferences; the roles of co-teachers and their collaboration; student feelings; academic learning; social participation; behaviour management; belonging; and self-efficacy. Students with and without disabilities believe that co-teaching has an overall positive academic and social impact on all students. Many students with and without disabilities reported important academic benefits from both teachers. When the co-taught class was not the place they were learning best, this was attributed to teachers’ insufficient collaboration, lack of individual support for students with disabilities, or the lack of academic challenges for students without disabilities. Students with and without disabilities also reported positive views on their social participation in the co-taught classrooms, especially in relation to friendships.
Other important findings include the prevalence of the “one teach, one assist/drift/observe” model and students’ preference for a variety of co-teaching models; students’ satisfaction that special educators can support all students and not just students with disabilities; and students’ view that when there is a low level of co-teachers’ collaboration occurring, this creates frustration and leads to low academic benefits. In addition, most students expressed positive feelings about having two teachers, noting that co-teaching can be fun. However, some students with disabilities were confused and frustrated when the material was difficult or when co-teachers were speaking simultaneously. Also, some felt stigmatised when the special educator was constantly working near their desk. The few studies that examined students’ belonging and self-efficacy reported high levels for both attributes and, in some cases, positive associations between them and student academic progress.
Based on the above, we intent to discuss the following: improvements on co-teaching, factors related to findings, cautions about future research, and implications for policy and practice.

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Contributors

Author: Vasilis Strogilos

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