Special Education Placement and the Self-Concepts of Elementary-School age Children

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between degree or extent of special education participation and measured self-concept. Subjects were 45 third-grade male students of average or above intelligence who were divided into three groups: 1) students in self-contained LD classes, 2) students provided individual tutoring, and 3) a control group of students from regular classes. Since achievement has consistently been found to correlate with scores on self-concept measures, a reading achievement score was obtained for each subject in order to examine the differences in self-concept while statistically controlling for achievement. The results indicated a significant difference among the three groups on both reading achievement and self-concept measures. With the effect of reading achievement covaried out, no significant difference remained among the three groups on measured self-concept. Rank ordering and statistical pairwise comparison of self-concept scores indicated poorer self-concepts for the tutored group despite higher achievement levels than the self-contained group.