Effectively teaching students with special educational needs (SEN): A template analysis and comparison of mainstream and special education teachers in Flanders

Numerous teachers face significant challenges teaching students with SEN, possibly stemming from a lack of guidance in translating broad principles formulated in teacher effectiveness frameworks into context-specific effective teaching behaviors. This study addresses this issue by outlining teachers' translations and comparing them across teachers from two classroom settings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 mainstream and 12 special education teachers and a template analysis revealed: (1) teachers mentioning a multitude of translations, highlighting numerous general effective teaching principles and (2) key differences between the two teacher groups concerning the ‘within-class differentiation’ and the ‘activating or reviewing prior and background knowledge’ indicator.