Teachers' expectations for handicapped and non-handicapped children in mainstreamed physical education classes

The purpose of this study was to describe the differences of 27 handicapped and 27 non-handicapped youngsters in terms of the teachers' expectation for their physical performance, social relations, cooperative behavior and ability to reason during physical education instruction. Matched pairs of handicapped and non-handicapped elementary school-aged children were taught by three elementary physical education specialists in mainstreamed physical education classes. At the beginning of the fall term, teachers were asked to rate their students according to how they expected them to perform in terms of the four expectancy variables. All three teachers had significantly lower expectations for the handicapped students' social relations with peers than the non-handicapped. Non-significant differences were found for the remaining expectancy variables.