The gap between research and practice revisited: Accommodation practices amid the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

AbstractPrevious research suggests that there is a demonstrated need to provide instructional and assessment accommodations for students with special needs in Canada and worldwide. Therefore, we conducted nine semi-structured interviews to better understand how Canadian elementary special education teachers’ perceived understanding of accommodations affected their practices before the COVID-19 pandemic, during school closures, and after school reopened in the province of Saskatchewan. Our interview data show that teachers’ perceptions of accommodations did not align with research and theory. Elementary teachers tended to utilize groupwise strategies for students with special needs. Overall, teachers’ perceptions and practices of accommodations remained constant prior to school closures and after school reopened, excepting some practices that were changed due to the COVID-19 safety protocols.Keywords: Accommodation practicesCOVID-19 pandemiconline teachingschool reentryspecial education Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationFundingThis research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.Notes on contributorsPei-Ying LinDr. Pei-Ying Lin is an Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Her scholarship primarily focuses on instructional and assessment policies and practices for students with special needs and/or English language learners, particularly in relation to equity and fairness within the contexts of classroom assessment and large-scale testing.Caroline Locher-LoDr. Caroline Locher-Lo is a lecturer with the department of Sociology and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at University of British Columbia. Her research interests encompass a wide spectrum, including literacy acquisition, linguistic retention, perceived and aspired identity, social inequality and equity, and gender and racial relations.Chia Jung YehDr. Chia Jung Yeh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at East Carolina University. Her research focuses on international virtual exchange learning, global teacher education, creative teaching strategies in mathematics and science, and STEM teaching and learning.