Remote special education during COVID-19: A combined bibliometric, content and thematic analysis

Abstract

While massive research has been conducted to see how remote learning and teaching is conduct during the COVID-19 pandemic, less focus has been paid on remote special education for students with disabilities. Therefore, it is still not clear how those students learned and what types of challenges they faced. To fill this gap, this study first collected data from the literature via a systematic literature review, and from both 51 teachers and 21 students with disabilities who were involved in this remote teaching and learning experiences via surveys. It then conducted bibliometric, content and thematic analysis to draw conclusions. The obtained findings highlighted that online and offline remote teaching methods from home were applied. Additionally, different learning assessment methods, such as mini-projects and simple quizzes were adopted by teachers to assess the gained knowledge of students remotely, but none of these methods relied on emerging technologies, such as big data and learning analytics. Finally, parents were a core actor to maintain remote learning from home for students with disabilities.