JAASEP SPRING/SUMMER 2025 Part 8 of 11
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According to the American Association for Employment in Education (2021), the special education area of educators in visual impairment was designated as an area of considerable shortage. In Texas, as reported in the 2023 Summary of Professionals in Visual Impairment in Texas (Robinson, 2024), it is estimated there will be a need of an additional 188 to 202 full-time equivalent TSVIs and 72 to 83 full-time equivalent O&M specialists in the next 3 years to replace those who are likely to leave the field and to respond to anticipated student growth. It has been shown that teachers generally work 50+ hours per week, which is a large contributor to burnout and leaving the profession (Jomuad, et al., 2021). There are teacher shortages across the nation in many fields, including in the STEM subjects, with the area of special education having the most shortages (Aldeman, 2024). In the field of visual impairment that already has significant shortages with the expectation of more of these professionals retiring early or leaving the field for other reasons in the future, the issue of workload is a serious one that needs to be addressed.
Abstract
Teacher workload leading to burnout is a significant problem facing many teachers today. The “Visual Impairment Scale of Staffing Pattern Analysis (VISSPA)” was designed to address the workload of vision professionals, teachers of students with visual impairments, and orientation and mobility specialists who work itinerantly with students who are visually impaired. This study attempted to determine the validity and reliability of the “VISSPA” through a mixed methods design. The study results indicated a high degree of validity and reliability of the new scale, based on feedback from 45 participants on a Likert scale and open-ended questions. Construct validity, consequential validity, and social validity of the tool were measured and found to all be supported by the data. The “VISSPA” was also found to be a reliable tool with a Cronbach alpha of 0.983, indicating a high degree of internal consistency. Ninety-one percent (n=45) of participants said they would use the “VISSPA” in the future to determine their workload.