Comparative Research on Special Education Degree Plans Between Czech Republic and Mainland China

Shangwei LI

Doctoral thesis

Abstract:

Special education degree plan in university is the important official document about the content and process of training special education teachers and the core factor of special education degree program. At present, although great progress has been made in theoretical research and practice about teacher education for ISN in Czech Republic and PRC, there is still no comparative research about special education degree programs or plans between the two countries. At the meantime, there are about 10 Czech universities with special education degree programs and more than 5600 enrollments each year and only 51 Chinese Mainland universities with that and more than 3100 ones each year, however, the number and quality of special education degree programs and special education teachers cannot yet meet diverse special needs for basic special education. The purpose of the research is to show the features of special education degree plans in Czech Republic and Mainland China. By means of mixed research methods uniting qualitative with quantitative research, the research has systematically investigated the status of special education degree plans in Czech and Chinese Mainland universities; compared their similarities and differences in focus fields, training purposes, curricular systems, training methods and evaluation systems; deconstructed their strengths, weakness, and challenges; and reconstructed the basic features of special education degree plan in future university and practical strategies of special education degree plans in future Czech Republic and PRC. Investigation shows that Czech Republic has set up more open, higher-level and more complete teacher education for ISN and special education degree programs, and more open, diverse and reasonable degree plans than Mainland China; and there are not only some similarities and differences between them, but also their own strengths in focus fields, training purposes, curricular systems, training methods and evaluation systems. On the one hand, special education degree plans in Czech Republic have paid more attention to applied fields with a few foreign languages; training multi-level professionals; diverse and open curricular systems balancing compulsory with compulsory elective, elective courses and theoretical with practical ones; diverse and intuitive methods with more attendance of the educated, self-learning, online learning and international communication; and process evaluation with more oral exams and unified credits; etc. On the other hand, special education degree plans in Mainland China have put great emphasis on theoretical fields; training applied professionals with all-around development; curricular systems with diverse course types and more compulsory courses and theoretical ones; class instruction with more attendance of the educators; and summary evaluation with more final written exams and specific requirements in dissertation words and published works; etc. At the same time, special education degree plans in Czech Republic and PRC still have some weaknesses in focus fields, training purposes, curricular systems, training methods and evaluation systems; and are facing up to imperfect internal design and insufficient external support. After deeply reflecting reality of special education degree programs in Czech Republic and PRC and fully learning from the related theory about program evaluation, special education, teacher education for ISN, etc., the research believes that special education degree plan in university should have propriety, humanism, flexibility, transparency, informatization, feasibility; and then thinks that special education degree plans should strengthen the legality/ rationality/ equality, diversity/ inclusion/, lifelong, changeability/ timeliness/ innovation, openness/ internationalization, computerization/ networking, and pertinence/ practicability/ effectiveness in future Czech Republic and PRC.

Language used: Czech

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 30. 3. 2017

Thesis defence

PALACKÝ UNIVERSITY OLOMOUC

Faculty of Education

Doctoral programme / field:
Special Education / Special Education