VIDBE-Q Volume 68 Issue 2
19
in it for their students. Yet, more than half did not include self-determination
related goals on their students IEPs (Agran et al., 1999). In 2000, Dr. Wehmeyer
and colleagues completed an OSEP-funded national survey study of special
educators on self-determination. They mirrored most of Agran et al.'s findings
from 1999. Teachers favored all that self-determination can offer for students, but
only 22% had self-determination related IEPs goals for all their students
(Wehmeyer et al., 2000). Both studies highlighted that even though teacher
perceptions of self-determination and belief over its importance might be high,
their practices and instructional activities do not actively promote it (Wehmeyer et
al., 2000). The Agran et al. (2007) survey study of AER's itinerant teacher
population found that TVIs perception and practices mirrors that of their special
educator peers, and interestingly, the results of my finding from 2022 are very
similar.
Self-determination is an indispensable but not stand alone part of the ECC. I
used the definition by Field and colleagues' (1998), and they state that self-
determination is:
A combination of skills, knowledge, and beliefs that enable a person to
engage in goal-directed, self-regulated, autonomous behavior. An
understanding of one's strengths and limitations together with a belief in
oneself as capable and effective are essential to self-determination. When
