Future Competencies for Preparing Educational Supervisors to Supervise Teachers of Students with Intellectual Disabilities in the Context of Digital Transformation: A Foresight Study

Abstract

Over the last years, the education system has changed more and more due to the fast technological development. The ways of teaching future teachers how to deal with students who have an intellectual disability have changed as well. This study aims to elaborate future competencies that educational supervisors need to acquire in order to deal with the digital change. This study was conducted by means of foresight in the form of a Delphi study. By this type of study expert consensus was searched in order to anticipate future needed competencies for supervising in the future. Future competencies for educational supervisors to be trained in the context of digitalization were identified in five main fields: Future Digital Competencies, Future Leadership Competencies, Future Professional and Ethical Competencies as well as Future Research and Innovation Competencies. The Future Digital Competencies for the Digital Education Context, especially with regard to AI, data literacy and digital leadership, reached the highest scores. Based on these results a new competency framework for training and developing educational supervisors for future supervisions in inclusive digital education in regular schools as well as in special education schools and centers for children and adolescents with intellectual disability can be developed.

The proposed competency framework could be used by universities and by education policy makers to support the preparation and development of educational supervisors for future-oriented, inclusive and technology-enhanced education of people with disabilities.