Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to examine differentiated instruction as it was used to address the needs of learning disabled students in general education classrooms. The study measured teachers' stages of concern, ascertain teachers' levels of use; and sought to identify a relationship between Differentiated Instruction and student achievement. Methodology. The subjects in the present study were ninety-nine teachers at four school sites of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Subjects responded to two research instruments: (1) a thirty-five-item survey assessing the teachers' stages of concern regarding implementing differentiated instruction, and (2) an interview utilizing a focused format of questions assessing teachers' levels of use of differentiated instruction. In addition to the two instruments the researcher used archival student achievement data identify the degree to which a relationship existed between differentiated instruction and student achievement. Findings. Examination of the quantitative and qualitative data from the four schools indicated teachers' high levels of self concerns and management concerns coupled with low levels of consequence and collaboration concerns negatively impacted teachers' abilities to work successfully together to differentiate instruction for learning disabled students in the general education classroom. Secondly, examination of the same data indicated teachers' low levels of use of differentiated instruction were a result of insufficient degrees of training, support, and resources and resulted in no significant achievement difference between students' whose instruction was differentiated as compared to students' whose instruction was not differentiated. Conclusions. The study data support the conclusion that teachers' intense concerns that were unrelated to differentiating instruction and limited use of differentiated instruction created barriers to teachers' abilities to significantly increase student achievement through differentiated instruction. Recommendations. Further research is advised: descriptive studies that replicate this study with other elementary school teachers as well as descriptive studies that replicate this study with high school teachers would enrich the current understanding of the impact of differentiated instruction on student achievement.