How To Use This Site

COPSSE provides stakeholders—practitioners, policymakers, scholars, family members, and the public—with research-based information on special education workforce issues. The COPSSE web site houses all of the documents—Research Syntheses, Issue Briefs, Executive Summaries, Presentations, Reports, Research Preview, and Workforce Watch—in formats that can be downloaded for your personal use.

Following are tips on locating information.

COPSSE Documents Come in Different Formats

You'll find our research presented in a variety of formats, including:

  • Research Syntheses and Issue Briefs—Immerse yourself in these scholarly papers that provide a comprehensive analysis of the research on a particular special education personnel topic or area. As an option, we've included an Executive Summary for each paper.
  • Presentations—Find out what COPSSE researchers are saying at conferences and meetings by reviewing their presentation handouts.
  • Research Previews—Learn about new and significant COPSSE research findings, as well as what COPSSE researchers think about them, in this series of brief articles.
  • Workforce Watches—Consider the practical implications of COPSSE research findings in this series of policy briefs designed for state and district policymakers, higher education faculty, practitioners, and concerned family members.
  • Miscellaneous Reports—Take a look at how COPSSE researchers plan and implement their research agenda in these papers and documents.
  • Research Reports [Coming Soon]—Review COPSSE original research findings in these formal reports.

COPSSE Documents Are Conveniently Organized

To assist you in your search, we have organized the COPSSE documents as follows:

  • COPSSE Complete Library—All of the documents found on the COPSSE web site are housed here. They are organized by document type (e.g., Research Synthesis, Workforce Watch, etc.).
  • Research Focus Areas—We understand that sometimes you are looking for information on a particular special education personnel topic. To streamline your search, we also have organized our research documents by topics—alternative certification, certification and licensure, related services, supply and demand, teacher preparation quality, and teacher quality. For each of these research focus areas, we have provided links to related COPSSE research documents.

Special Features Link You To COPSSE Documents

COPSSE knows that sometimes you may not have a particular question or need in mind, but still would like to explore the COPSSE collection for new information. To assist you in learning more about addressing special education workforce issues, we have included features that spotlight practical information and link you to data sources. Take a look at:

  • Research Spotlight—where we highlight key research findings that have particular relevance to practitioners, policymakers, and family/advocates.
  • Questions and Answers—where we discuss the implications of our research for practice.
  • Links to Other Sites—where we put you in touch with colleagues at other centers who are making important contributions to the special education personnel knowledge base.