Samenvatting

The first aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a link between the degree in which a teacher is cooperating with colleagues within a school and the level of stress experienced by teachers with regard to teaching pupils with special needs. The second aim was to discuss the influence of the type of disability and some background variables (sex, age and teaching experience) on the extent of stress experienced by teachers while teaching pupils with special needs. By means of a digital survey regular schoolteachers (N = 34) were asked to indicate to what extent they experience stress by teaching pupils with special needs and to which degree they are cooperating with colleagues with regard to these pupils. Each regular schoolteacher received a survey with a vignette about a pupil with ADHD, PDD-NOS or an intellectual disability. Descriptives, correlations and tests for comparing groups were used to answer the research question of this study. The results suggest that there is no significant correlation between the total score for cooperation between colleagues and stress as experienced by teachers. The results of this study show that teachers experience the behaviour of students with PDD-NOS and ADHD on many fronts as more stressful than the behaviour of a student with Down Syndrome. However, the type of disability and the background variables seem to have no significant effect on the extent of experienced stress by teachers.