Sara Givon & Deborah Court (2009) Coping strategies of high school students with learning disabilities: a longitudinal qualitative study and grounded theory, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23:3, 283-303, DOI: 10.1080/09518390903352343

This study took place in Israel. Givon and Court interviewed twenty high school students who had  identified learning disabilities. Givon and Court sought to investigate the coping strategies these students possessed. For their research, they used four emotional-cognitive strategies: avoidance, rebellion, reconciliation, and determination. These were used a measure to assess the students’ level of adjustment to their learning disability. This research focused on students with learning disabilities and the resources and coping skills they utilized, or not through their secondary education by collecting data in their tenth grade, eleventh grade, and twelfth grade years. The study asked the following research question: “What emotional and cognitive resources do the students themselves recruit toward trying to meet the academic demands of obtaining a matriculation certificate?” The data used for this research was mostly personal feelings and reports of acts, behaviors, or events. This data was collected through “in-depth, semi-structured interviews” with every student in their sample population. They also conducted interviews with parents and teachers of the students. Additionally, they collected organizational records to access academic records. To analyze their data, they used the ‘grounded theory’ methodology. All the interviews had been transcribed from audio recordings, keeping in line with the grounded theory methodology. The research seemed thorough and I was impressed with the models of coping strategies they developed from their findings. This research was interesting because it was an international study, and I had only been looking at U.S. perspectives, since our educational policies differ nationally. I was also surprised to see a study conducted on minors in special education. I have not found studies of this nature, I believe because of IRB policies protecting children and people with disabilities. While the standards may be different in Israel than they are in the states, it was still helpful to look at a study such as this.