The authors explore the perceptions related to cohort education models (CEMs) of special education professors and doctoral students at a Carnegie-designated research extensive university in a multicultural, urban area in the southeastern United States. Three themes emerged: (a) Organizational efficiency of CEMs and benefits to student learning outweigh concerns, (b) structure of CEMs impacts students who are not in the CEM, and (c) CEM structure impacts professors. Benefits of a CEM included interstudent support, a flexible learning model, support for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners, opportunities for building trusting relationships, ease in class scheduling, and opportunity for maturation. Presence of the CEM affected the non-CEM students and professors negatively in several ways. Although CEMs are strong mechanisms for supporting students, the faculty must be aware of group cohesion within cohorts to effectively engage the students in the academic process to address the retention problem of doctoral students, decrease the disparity between CEM and non-CEM students, and improve graduate studies programs.

No abstract