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Teachers’ perceptions of students’

additional support needs: in the eye of
the beholder?
a ab b
Marjon Bruggink , Sui L. Goei & Hans M. Koot
a
Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, The
Netherlands
b
VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Published online: 15 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Marjon Bruggink, Sui L. Goei & Hans M. Koot (2014): Teachers’ perceptions
of students’ additional support needs: in the eye of the beholder?, Educational Psychology: An
International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/01443410.2014.958436

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 Educational Psychology, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2014.958436

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Teachers’ perceptions of students’ additional support needs: in the
eye of the beholder?
Marjon Brugginka*, Sui L. Goeia,b and Hans M. Kootb
a
Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, The Netherlands; bVU University,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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(Received 26 November 2013; final version received 21 August 2014)

Nowadays, teachers are regarded as key players in the process of identifying and
catering to students’ additional support needs within mainstream primary class-
rooms. However, teachers’ professional judgements regarding students with spe-
cial needs have been found to be contextually influenced (e.g. by school context,
student population, level of achievement). It is unclear whether teachers’ percep-
tions of their students’ actual support needs are also influenced by their personal
and professional characteristics. Hence, a better understanding of the value of
teachers’ perceptions regarding students’ needs is needed. Therefore, this study
explored perceptions of 109 Dutch mainstream primary teachers regarding four
dimensions of students’ additional support. It addressed whether these teacher-
perceived students’ needs are affected by teachers’ years of experience, level of
training, personality traits and self-efficacy beliefs. It was found that teachers’
perceptions of students’ needs were relatively unbiased by their personal and
professional characteristics.
Keywords: elementary school teachers; educational needs; special needs
students; personality traits; self-efficacy

Introduction
Teachers in mainstream primary classrooms have acknowledged for some time that
students differ in terms of educational attainment, social or behavioural characteris-
tics, as well as their educational needs requisite to accomplishing set educational
goals (Riding, 2005). This is the natural order of things, but, at the same time, a
professional dilemma for teachers (Black-Hawkins & Florian, 2012), since a one-
size-fits-all approach is not sufficient. Therefore, teachers question themselves on
how to proactively provide (additional) support within the classroom, thus allowing
all students to benefit from lessons taught and attain set educational goals.
It follows that teachers’ professional understanding of their students’ (additional)
learning support needs (Chaney, 2012) are fundamental preconditions of meeting
today’s professional standards within the regular classrooms. In contrast to clinical
professionals (e.g. school psychologists, psychiatrists) working in the field of educa-
tion – whose job is to identify students’ needs in terms of deficits and diagnosis, if
applicable – teachers are teaching. This implies that their main concern is to address
students’ additional support in terms of alterations needed in the classroom. This

*Corresponding author. Email: M.Bruggink@Windesheim.nl

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 2 M. Bruggink et al.

support should be addressed in light of the desired learning outcomes (Vehmas,

2010), which can be related to academic subjects, classroom behaviour or social/
emotional development (Boekaerts, de Koning, & Vedder, 2006; Meijer, 2009).
This teachers’ perspective of students’ additional support needs is relevant and
has recently received increasing attention (Croll & Moses, 2003; Lebeer et al., 2010;
Lindsay, 2007; Norwich, 2008; Pameijer, 2006; van der Veen, Smeets, & Derriks,
2010). When mainstream primary teachers were asked to identify students with addi-
tional support needs, they designated a heterogeneous group of students, character-
ised by large variations and individual differences, including boys and girls, high
and low achievers on mathematics or reading comprehension, and many without a
clinical diagnosis of special educational needs (Bruggink, Goei, & Koot, 2013).
Another study, (Bruggink, Meijer, Goei, & Koot, 2014), showed that teacher-
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identified students’ needs in mainstream primary education can be subsumed under

four dimensions: (1) the need for instructional support (e.g. ‘one strategy to solve a
problem’), (2) the need for (on-task) behavioural support (e.g. ‘set boundaries’), (3)
the need for emotional support (e.g. ‘feedback on effort’) and the (4) need for peer
support (e.g. ‘working together with peers’).
From this perspective of additional support needs, teachers are viewed as key
players in the process of addressing and meeting needs in terms of support needed
within classrooms. However, it should be taken into account that teachers’ profes-
sional views with regard to special needs are contextually influenced. For instance,
the teacher-perceived number of students with special educational needs within their
classrooms is influenced by the school’s context (McCoy, Banks, & Shevlin, 2012),
teachers’ beliefs and practices (Anders et al., 2011), average educational attainment
level in the classroom (Croll, 2002; Lupton, Thrupp, & Brown, 2010) and the num-
ber of students with special educational needs in the classroom (Hibel, Farkas, &
Morgan, 2010; Ledoux, Smeets, & van der Veen, 2005).
What is fairly unknown, however, is, to what extent teachers’ professional views
regarding their students’ (additional) support needs are subjective, i.e. projected or
biased by teachers’ characteristics, personal preferences or constructs (Kelly, 2003).
It is important to fill this gap because the teacher is the one addressing and meeting
these additional support needs in terms of alterations within classrooms; he/she is
teaching the classroom. Further knowledge regarding the value of teachers’ percep-
tions of students’ additional support needs is therefore needed, since these percep-
tions are likely to be at the base of teachers’ everyday practice. Therefore, this study
explored the relation between teacher-perceived students’ additional needs and
teachers’ personal and professional characteristics.

Teachers’ personal and professional characteristics of relevance

Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
Teachers’ self-efficacy, that is the teacher’s judgement of his or her capabilities
to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning
(Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), might bias teachers’ perceptions of students’ addi-
tional support needs. Israeli teachers’ self-efficacy was found to be positively related
to attitudes towards including children with special needs. Teachers’ self-efficacy
beliefs related with helpful responses to social rejection, shyness, passive–aggressive
behaviour (Hutzler, Zach, & Gafni, 2005) and low achievement (Almog &
 Educational Psychology 3

Shechtman, 2007). Tournaki and Podell (2005) report that teachers with higher
self-efficacy beliefs make more positive predictions of academic achievements.
Georgiou, Chirstou, Stavrinides, and Panauora (2002) found that students facing
learning problems, are more likely to receive better treatment by a teacher who has
a higher sense of efficacy. This may be because high levels of self-efficacy have an
impact on teachers’ sense of control and their efforts to improve students’ achieve-
ment and motivation. Moreover, high-efficacy teachers in the UK were found to feel
more responsible for the student’s failures, see the failing student as a challenge
rather than a problem in the class, and make more attributions of their own teaching
(Brady & Woolfson, 2008; Woolfson & Brady, 2009). Hence, it could be that teach-
ers with higher self-efficacy beliefs are generally better in meeting students needs
because they are more attentive to students’ additional support needs. Thus, the
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average level of perceived student needs may be higher in teachers with high levels
of self-efficacy beliefs.

Teachers’ personality traits

Another possible relevant teacher characteristic is the teacher’s personality in terms
of extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscien-
tiousness (McCrae & Costa, 2008). It could be that teachers are sensitive to those
student needs that fit the attention induced by their own personality traits and associ-
ated preferences or constructs (Kelly, 2003). While there is little empirical evidence
to support this, Mills’ (2003) study shows that the cognitive preferences and person-
ality of effective teachers of highly gifted students (i.e. selected based on observa-
tions, performance ratings and evaluations by students) mirrored the characteristics
of their students (e.g. preferring abstract themes and concepts, being open and flexi-
ble, valuing logical analysis and objectivity). It could imply that teachers who con-
nect well with the students, in addition to or in place of matching of personality
traits, could be more attentive to these students’ needs.
In addition, it could be that specific personality traits stand out. Unruh and
McCord (2010) studied 53 American undergraduate student teachers and found that
those who were more open-minded exhibited more positive beliefs about diversity
in the school setting. This personality could also affect teachers’ beliefs regarding
preferred teaching style, in terms of classroom environment, and instruction style, as
reported by Decker and Rimm-Kaufman (2008). They found that the 397 American
pre-service teachers in their sample who reported being more open and/or less con-
scientious, preferred implicit approaches to managing their classrooms; they were
more concerned with student autonomy and less with maintaining classroom control.
In addition, Ripski, LoCasale-Crouch, and Decker (2011) found that higher self-
reported levels of extraversion of American pre-service teachers were related to
lower quality instructional interactions with students. No relationships between
teachers’ personality in the domains of emotional support and classroom organisa-
tion were found. However, in a study on 48 Dutch high school student teachers,
Mainhard, Brekelmand, Wubbels, and Den Brok (2008) reported that agreeableness
and a lack of neuroticism contributed to perceived closeness between students and
teachers. These findings are in line with the work of Kokkinos’ (2007), who con-
cluded that 447 primary school teachers from Cyprus with higher scores in neuroti-
cism tended to express more negative emotions, emotional instability and stress
reactions.
 4 M. Bruggink et al.

Thus, some evidence is available to build upon our expectations that teachers’
perceptions of students’ additional support needs could be influenced by teachers’
personality traits. More specifically, the studies cited above indicate that teachers
could be sensitive to those students’ needs that match the attention induced by their
own personality traits. Second, it could be that overall positive effects of teachers’
openness are to be found on awareness of students’ additional support needs. And
third, it is expected that specific relationships occur between teachers’ personality
traits and their perceptions of students’ needs. For instance, a positive relationship
between teachers’ level of conscientiousness and perceived need for instructional
support may be due to the preference of instructing students with a guiding hand by
being, for instance, punctual, organised and in control. It could also be assumed that
teachers’ agreeableness might stimulate them to encourage their students they feel
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closely related to. Conversely, teachers’ neuroticism could predict a lower sense of
students’ emotional support needs due to lack of teachers’ awareness of the students’
need for a compliment, kind words or constructive feedback.
These ideas on relationships between teachers’ personality and the four dimen-
sions of teacher-perceived students’ additional support needs, while interesting,
remain speculative, since they are not yet empirically studied. This study makes a
start in doing that.

Aims of this study

In sum, the questions of potential bias in teachers’ perceptions of students’
additional support needs due to professional and personal characteristics is relevant
since the professional task of mainstream primary teachers is to address and meet a
(growing) variety of students’ additional support needs. However, it should not be
assumed from the outset that teachers’ perceptions are objective, since previous
studies showed that professional judgements are contextually influenced and that
teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and personality traits both may influence these
perceptions.
For that reason, this study aims to explore the association between teacher-
perceived students’ and these teachers’ personality traits and self-efficacy beliefs in
teaching. First, teachers with higher levels of self-efficacy beliefs were expected to
be generally more attentive to students’ additional support needs. Second, teachers’
personality traits were expected to relate to specific perceived needs, mirroring
teachers’ personality-related preferences. However, as no previous empirical studies
addressed this specific question, analyses were explorative.

Methods
Sample and procedure
A total of 109 teachers in the Dutch mainstream primary education, in the last
semester of their Bachelor of Education (B Ed, n = 80) or studying for their profes-
sional Master in Special Educational Needs (M SEN, n = 29) at a University of
Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, participated in the study. Their ages ranged
from 19 to 59 years with a mean age of 28 years. All participating teachers were
teaching students aged 8–12 years, either as an obligatory part of their last year in
teacher training or as a qualified teacher working in a school. Years of teaching
 Educational Psychology 5

experience ranged from being in their first year of teaching up to having 32 years of
experience (63% 0–5 years, 22% 6–10 years, 8% > 10 years). Teachers were asked
to fill in the questionnaires for their own individual students. Participants were
recruited during a compulsory course on defining students’ (additional) support
needs. Data collection took place from May to July and from September to
December 2012.
In order to identify students with additional support needs, teachers were asked:
‘Which of your students are in need of additional support to achieve set educational
goals?’. It was made clear that educational goals could pertain not just to a specific
subject, but also to a student’s social, emotional or behavioural development. Since
it was too time-consuming for teachers to fill in the questionnaire regarding stu-
dents’ additional support needs for all teacher-identified students with additional
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support needs, two students were randomly selected by the researchers from a class-
room overview of teacher-identified students as was provided by the participating
teachers. This resulted, per teacher, in a list of teacher-identified students, varying
from 3 to 10 students, with two of them randomly selected (n = 218; 67.7% male)
for the purpose of this study. About a third of these students scored above national
average in mathematics (39%) and comprehensive reading (30%), and 38% of the
students had a formal psychiatric or educational diagnosis (31.9% dyslexia, 27%
autism spectrum disorder, 28% AD(H)D, 3.6% highly gifted, 1.3% Down syndrome,
8.2% unspecified).

Instruments
Students’ additional support needs
Teachers scored their perceptions of students’ additional support needs of each of the
two selected students using a questionnaire comprising four very reliable (sub)scales
(Bruggink et al., 2014). This questionnaire represents four second-order dimensions
of students’ additional support needs, i.e. ‘need for instructional support’ (α = .95; 30
items; e.g. ‘one strategy to solve a problem’), ‘need for (on-task) behavioural support’
(α = .94; 20 items, e.g. ‘set boundaries’, ‘need for emotional support’ (α = .90; 12
items, ‘feedback on effort’) and the need for peer support (α = .80; 11 items; ‘working
together with peers’). The scales are in Dutch and measured on a five-point Likert
scale: (1) very inapplicable – (5) very applicable. Given alpha’s were obtained in this
study.

Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs

Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs were measured using the Dutch version (Goei,
Bekebrede, & Bosma, 2011) of the Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (OSTES,
Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). The OSTES is a 24-item questionnaire assessing
teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs on a 9-point scale ranging from 1 (never applicable) to
9 (often applicable), on three scales: efficacy in student engagement (α = .76; 8
items, e.g. ‘How much can you do to get through to the most difficult students?’),
efficacy in instructional strategies (α = .84; 8 items, e.g. ‘How well can you respond
to difficult questions from your students?’) and efficacy in classroom management
(α = .91; 8 items, e.g. ‘How well can you establish routines to keep activities run-
ning smoothly?’). All presented reliability values were obtained within this study.
 6 M. Bruggink et al.

Teachers’ personality traits

Teachers completed a shortened Dutch version of Goldberg’s Big Five questionnaire
(1992) developed by Gerris et al. (1998). This measures 30 Big Five personality
markers covering five personality dimensions (6 items each). Using a 7-point Likert
scale, ranging from 1 (very untrue) to 7 (very true), respondents were asked to
indicate to what extent the given items characterise them. Prior studies have shown
this instrument to have adequate reliability and validity (Branje, van Lieshout, &
Gerris, 2007). However, reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s α) of the original scales
of six items were not outstanding in the current study: Extraversion, α = .66;
Agreeableness, α = .73; Conscientiousness, α = .82; Neuroticism, α = .51; and
Openness to experience, α = .71. Therefore, scales’ α were optimised by deleting
items, resulting in: Extraversion (α = .84; 4 items, e.g. the recoded item ‘with-
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drawn’), Agreeableness (α = .73; 6 items, e.g. ‘friendly’), Conscientiousness

(α = .89; 5 items, e.g. ‘accurate’), Neuroticism (α = .73; 5 items, e.g. ‘nervous’) and
Openness to experience (α = .75; 6 items, e.g. ‘creative’). These shortened scales
were used in this study.

Analysis
A weighted mean average of teacher-perceived additional support needs was
calculated per teacher for all four domains based on the scores of the two selected
students.
Since this study’s sample consisted of teachers at the bachelor’s and master’s
level, mean differences of teacher-perceived students’ additional support needs by
teachers’ level of training were tested using one-way ANOVA. In addition, to take
the range of teachers’ years of experience into account, Pearson’s correlations were
computed to see whether teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and teachers’ personality
related to years of experience.
To test whether teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and personality traits predict tea-
cher-perceived students’ additional support needs, hierarchical multiple regression
analysis was used. Correlations amongst predictor variables (teachers’ self-efficacy
beliefs; teachers’ personality traits) were weak to high, ranging from r = .01 to
r = .57. Years of experience was added in the first step as a covariate. In the second
step, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs (in three subscales) and teachers’ personality
traits (in five subscales) were entered.

Results
Table 1 presents mean (SD) scale scores of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and
teachers’ personality traits as scored within this study’s sample.
Table 2 presents means (SD) of teacher-perceived students’ needs by teachers’
level of training, years of experience and Pearson’s Correlations (two-sided) of per-
ceived needs with teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and personality traits.
As presented in Table 2, no significant differences were found between teachers
at the bachelor’s and master’s level on teacher-perceived students’ additional support
needs, neither for the need for instructional support, F(1,107) = .46; p = .50, nor for
emotional support F(l,107) = .01; p = .93, or (on)-task behavioural support,
F(1,107) = .30; p = .59 or peer support, F(1,107) = .11; p = .75. In addition, no
 Educational Psychology 7

Table 1. Scale scores of teachers’ characteristics.

M SD
Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
Engagement 6.34 .70
Instructional strategies 6.65 .93
Classroom management 6.95 1.06

Teachers’ personality traits

Extraversion 5.08 1.10
Agreeableness 5.87 .45
Conscientiousness 6.66 .97
Neuroticism 5.34 .85
Openness to new ideas 4.90 .91
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Table 2. Teachers’ perceptions of dimensions of students’ additional support needs by

teachers’ characteristics.
Need for Need for (on-task) Need for Need for
instructional behavioural emotional peer
support support support support
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)
Level of training
Bachelor 3.71 (.50) 3.58 (.66) 4.11 (.52) 3.70 (.61)
Master 3.79 (.59) 3.65 (.61) 4.12 (.47) 3.75 (.65)

r r r r
Years of experience .16 .02 .06 .11

Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs

Engagement .26** .04 .24* .00
Instructional strategies .24** .05 .16 .06
Classroom management .26** −.01 .06 .06

Teachers’ personality traits

Extraversion .07 −.07 .04 .02
Agreeableness .03 .03 .01 .13
Conscientiousness .20** −.03 −.01 .02
Neuroticism −.04 −.03 −.06 .02
Openness to new ideas .01 .06 .08 .10
*p < .05; **p < .01.

significant correlations were found between years of experience in teaching and the
four dimensions of teacher-perceived students’ additional support needs.
The three subscales of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs (i.e. engagement,
instructional strategies and classroom management) showed small but significant
correlations to teacher-perceived students’ needs for instructional support. Teachers’
self-efficacy beliefs in engaging also correlated significantly with teacher-perceived
students’ additional emotional support needs. No relationships were found between
teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs regarding their instructional strategies and classroom
management, and their perceptions’ of students’ need for emotional support.
Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs did not relate to teachers’ perceptions of students’
needs for behavioural support, nor to the perceived need for peer support.
 8 M. Bruggink et al.

Teachers’ personality trait of conscientiousness showed a significant relationship

to teacher-perceived students’ needs for instructional support. No other significant
relationships were found between teachers’ personality, in terms of extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to new ideas, and their per-
ceptions of students’ additional instructional needs.

Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and personality traits as predictors

Table 3 presents results of multiple regression analyses of teachers’ perceptions of stu-
dents’ additional support needs on teachers’ professional and personal characteristics.
As presented in Table 3, none of the subscales of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
(TSE) and personality (P) traits were significant predictors of teacher-perceived stu-
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dents’ additional support needs, after controlling for years of experience. The model
for instructional support needs in step 2 was not statistically significant, F(10,98) =
1.44; p = .17, and neither was the model for (on-task) behavioural support needs,
F(10,98) = .95; p = .50, and nor the model for emotional support F(10,98) = .20.
p = .99, or the model for peer support needs F(10,98) = .40; p = .89.

Discussion and conclusion

This study’s aim was to assess potential personal bias in teacher-perceived students’
additional support needs in Dutch mainstream primary education by exploring rela-
tions between teachers’ perceptions of these needs and their personal and profes-
sional characteristics.
The study’s sample consisted of teachers at bachelor’s and master’s level, rang-
ing in years of experience in teaching. For that reason, relationships between level
of training and years of experience with teacher-perceived students’ additional sup-
port needs were tested. No significant differences were found between perceptions
of students’ additional support needs by the teachers’ level of training. Also, no
relations were found between teachers’ years of experience and their perceptions of
students’ need.
Moreover, this study explored relationships between teachers’ self-efficacy
beliefs and personality traits with teachers’ perceptions of their students’ additional
support needs. Significant relationships were found between (1) teachers’
self-efficacy beliefs in engaging students and their perceptions of students’ need for
additional instructional and emotional support, and (2) teachers’ conscientiousness
and the perception of students’ need for instructional support. However, multiple
regression analyses showed that none of the subscales of teachers’ self-efficacy
beliefs were significant predictors of teacher-perceived students’ additional support
needs after controlling for years of experience. Thus, no evidence was found in this
study for predictive value of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs when addressing students’
additional support needs. This is in contrast to our expectation of teachers with
higher self-efficacy beliefs being generally more attentive to students’ additional
support needs (Almog & Shechtman, 2007; Brady & Woolfson, 2008; Geogriou
et al., 2002; Hutzler et al., 2005).
None of the teachers’ personality traits were significant predictors of teacher-
perceived students’ additional support needs; it seems that the nature of the teachers
in terms of personality does not affect their perceptions of students’ needs. These
findings are remarkable, since we expected that teachers’ personality could mirror
 Downloaded by [Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam] at 22:54 17 September 2014

Table 3. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting dimensions of teacher-perceived students’ additional support needs.
Need for instructional Need for (on-task) Need for emotional
support behavioural support support Need for peer support
B SE β B SE β B SE β B SE Β
Teachers’ self-efficacy
Engagement .21 .34 .08 .06 .31 .03 .27 .14 .25 −.16 .16 −.13
Instructional strategies .18 .25 .09 .13 .23 .07 .10 .10 .12 .06 .12 .07
Classroom management .20 .22 .14 −.09 .20 −.06 −.10 .09 −.14 .06 .11 .07

Teachers’ personality
Extraversion .27 .35 .08 −.21 .32 −.07 .09 .15 .07 −.01 .17 −.01
Agreeableness −.07 .58 −.01 .15 .54 .03 −.06 .24 −.03 .42 .28 .17
Conscientiousness .50 .33 .16 −.03 .31 −.01 −.02 .14 −.01 −.04 .16 −.03
Neuroticism −.36 .37 −.11 −.06 .34 −.02 −.13 .15 −.10 −.09 .17 −.06
Openness to new ideas −.04 .32 −.01 .16 .30 .06 .09 .13 .07 .09 .15 .06
Note: Control variables included teachers’ years of experience. None of the presented associations were significant.
Educational Psychology
9
 10 M. Bruggink et al.

their perceptions of students’ needs (Mills, 2003), or that overall positive effects
would be found of teachers’ openness on perceived needs (Unruh & McCord,
2010). Also, it was expected that specific relationships could occur between
teachers’ personality traits and their perceptions of students’ needs, such as agree-
ableness and neuroticism with emotional support (Kokkinos, 2007; Mainhard et al.,
2008). However, none of these assumptions were met.
To interpret these unexpected findings, we note that expectations were based on
previous research that differed from ours in several ways. Others (Decker &
Rimm-Kaufman, 2008; Ripski et al., 2011; Unruh & McCord, 2010) studied student
teachers, and did not include employed teachers in their samples. Most of the studies
were conducted in other countries; relationships between teachers’ characteristics
and their perceptions of students’ needs could be culturally different. Though, one
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study was done in the Netherlands (Mainhard et al., 2008), this study involved high
school teachers and not teachers working in primary education, as in our study.
Also, some of cited studies used correlations to express relations, rather than explor-
ing the predictive value of variables using regression analysis. Moreover, this study
addressed the potential bias on the four dimensions of students’ additional support
needs, which were not studied before. All reported results were novel and could, for
that reason, differ from previous studies.
Though this study builds our knowledge on the value of teacher-perceived stu-
dents’ additional support needs in the Dutch mainstream primary education, these
findings cannot be generalised (1) throughout educational settings, since it narrowly
focused on mainstream primary education and (2) globally, since a restrictive sample
of 109 Dutch teachers was used. For that reason, studies could be taken up to study
these teachers’ characteristics on a larger scale, in representative samples (e.g. gen-
der, experience in teaching and level of training) and, in different countries. Another
limitation is that a weighted average of teacher-perceived students’ additional sup-
port needs using the scores of only two individual students, including a larger num-
ber of students, would likely have given a more reliable picture. Moreover, this
study does not inform us about teachers’ capacities to meet these needs. Other stud-
ies have already indicated teachers’ struggles to meet students’ additional support
needs (Humphrey et al., 2006; Talmor, Reiter, & Feigin, 2005). Therefore, it is rele-
vant to further explore whether, and how, teachers are able to translate their percep-
tions of students’ needs into daily practice in terms of actual alterations in the
classroom practice. More work is needed to develop knowledge on how teachers are
able to actually meet the observed additional support needs of students identified by
them as being in need, and what is helping or troubling them, when being helped.
However, considering that this is just the first study on the matter, and acknowl-
edging that findings should not be generalised, we interpret these (unexpected) find-
ings as an argument in favour of teachers’ perceptions of students’ needs. This study
found no evidence to question the objectivity of their perceptions, based on the
studied sample of teachers and using average scores of two identified students with
additional support needs per teacher. Hence, teachers could be regarded as relevant
informants in the (educational diagnostic) process of identifying students’ needs in
everyday practice; this study provides some evidence that teachers’ perceptions of
their students’ additional support needs are unbiased by their professional and per-
sonal characteristics in terms of level of training, years of experience, teachers’ self-
efficacy beliefs and personality traits.
 Educational Psychology 11

This study should be regarded an important first step in studying an unex-

plored frontier. These outcomes reinforce the trend towards a more teacher-
centred focus when identifying and meeting students’ needs. The questions
regarding the value of teachers’ perceptions of students’ needs in terms of alter-
ations within classrooms as posed in this study, rather than a focus on deficits
as we know in the traditional paradigm, are broad and internationally relevant.
The discussion towards an additional support needs perspective is well estab-
lished and many authors throughout Europe have argued this shift (Croll &
Moses, 2003; Lebeer et al., 2010; Lindsay, 2007; Norwich, 2008; Pameijer,
2006; van der Veen et al., 2010). However, and this is the added value of this
study, only few have conducted empirical research on whether teachers’ charac-
teristics influence teachers’ perceptions of these students’ needs. In this study,
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teachers’ professional judgements of students’ additional support needs surpassed

individual teachers’ professional and personality characteristics.
This calls upon teacher training to ascertain that teachers develop skills to recog-
nise students’ additional support needs. This is especially important in the light of
movements away from defining students’ special educational needs, in terms of
within-child problems, towards an understanding of students’ additional support
needs, as alterations in the classroom (Pameijer, 2006).Teacher training should make
the participants aware that their students in mainstream primary education are not all
the same (Florian, 2008), but that they have different needs and, as a consequence,
stimulate teachers to proactively provide differentiated instruction (Smit & Humpert,
2012; Tomlinson et al., 2003) in order to achieve adaptive education (Vogt &
Rogalla, 2009). These insights, and possible good practices, could then support the
development of curricula in teacher training in order to eventually serve the growing
heterogeneity of students in mainstream primary education with excellent teachers
who are able to observe, interpret and cater to a diversity of students’ needs,
allowing all to learn.

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