The purpose of this study is to investigate special education teachers'' perception on employability and life skills which are required for students with intellectual disabilities for vocational transition. The specific objectives of this study are to investigate: 1) teachers'' perceived importance of teaching employability and life skills and implementation level of them and 2) differences of perception levels among teachers in terms of their backgrounds.
The conclusions of this study are as follows:
First, the importance of teaching employability and life skills for vocational transition of students with intellectual disabilities was highly perceived by the special education teachers, but the level of implementation perception was relatively low. Especially, the teachers perceived teaching self-help skills as the most important one among eight part of employability and life skills areas, and they perceived teaching working attitude as the least important one. Self-help skills were also the most highly-perceived part in the implementation level of teaching employability and life skills areas, and working attitude was the lowest part. In addition, the ten items that is needed for special education teachers to instruct to help their students succeed in their vocational transition were presented by examining the differences between the teachers'' perception on importance and implementation.
Second, there were significant differences in perception of special education teachers in regards of background variables among groups of them. When it comes to perception levels of the importance of teaching employability and life skills, teachers who have over 10 years teaching experience perceived them higher than teachers who have less than 5 years and from 5 to 10 years. Teachers who finished graduate schools perceived them higher than teachers who graduated from universities. Regarding teachers'' perception levels of implementation, teachers who work in special schools were higher than teachers who work in special classes, the postsecondary vocational classroom teachers had perception levels higher than the high school teachers, and teachers who have above 10 years teaching experience had higher levels than teachers who have less than 5 years and between 5 and 10 years. Also, teachers who finished graduate schools perceived the levels of implementation higher than teachers who graduated from universities.
The conclusion of this study that is to investigate special education teachers'' perception on the importance and implementation of teaching employability and life skills provides fundamental data for effective transition education. It will be able to be used by special education teachers to help students with intellectual disabilities with their successful vocational transition after graduation.