Since the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a growing number of countries are implementing the law in terms of an inclusive school system. This global trend (Garrote, Dessemontet & Opitz, 2017) of including rather than separating students with a special educational needs (SEN) diagnosis, thereby, receives support by a growing body of empirical research. International reviews (Lindsay, 2007; Ruijs & Peetsma, 2009) indicate that students with a SEN diagnosis performed better academically in inclusive school settings than in separated school settings. Thus, for the future it can be expected that an increasing number of students with a SEN diagnosis will attend a regular school (Dietze, 2013). Subsequently, the composition of a “typical” classroom will change with respect to at least academic, behavioral and social variables.

As classes become more diverse, changes in the instructional style and teaching methods are necessary to fully address the needs of all students. Two frequently proposed measures to address diversity are (1) the implementation of co-teaching as part of the collaboration in a multidisciplinary team (Friend, Cook, Hurley-Chamberlain & Shamberger, 2010) and (2) the fostering of high quality peer interactions, e.g. in form of peer tutoring approaches (Hattie, 2009,  pp. 186).

However, most of the past research on the association between co-teaching and students’ classroom interactions were not solely focused on inclusive classes and students with a SEN diagnosis. Furthermore, in most studies the observers had to make judgments about the teaching style and global rating scales were used for the observations. Thus, characteristics of the classes and student’s behavior during classes were accessed with a merely general perspective. Therefore, it is to question, whether these global measures could capture appropriately individual teacher-student or student-student interactions. One method particularly designed for this purpose is the “on the spot” observation method (Blatchford, Bassett & Brown, 2005). In contrast to methods relying on rather global judgments of observers, “on the spot” observations are designed to record ongoing behavior with a minimum of interpretation by the observer. To achieve this, only easy to spot behavior is recorded and the number of observable categories is predefined and restricted by the researcher. For a detailed view on the classroom processes the observations are done with a high frequency sampling scheme. Here, the interval between successive observations is only a few seconds long.

To date only a few studies have analyzed how co-teaching is related to the teacher-student and student-student interactions during a school lesson. Blatchford, Basset, Brown and Webster (2009) for example found in a sample of n = 27 primary schools, that the presence of a member of the school’s support staff had a positive impact on the students’ attention. However, at the same time the number of contacts with the classroom teacher declined. 

Since students with a SEN diagnosis need a more supportive teaching style compared to students without a SEN diagnosis, we assume that students with a SEN diagnosis have an increased likelihood of a contact with a member of the school’s support staff (Hypothesis I). At the same time, we assume that the increased frequency of contacts to a member of the school’s support staff isolates these students and that this subsequently reduces the likelihood of a peer contact for students with a SEN diagnosis compared to students without a SEN diagnosis (Hypothesis II).

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