04. Inclusive Education
Paper
Inclusive Education according to Teachers' Attitudes in the Greek School
Konstantia Polyzopoulou1, Helen Tsakiridou2
1External Academic Fellow, Department of Public and One Health, University of Thessaly, Greece; 2Professor of Applied Statistics and Research Methodology, Department of Regional and Cross Border Development Studies, University of Western Macedonia, Greece
Presenting Author: Polyzopoulou, Konstantia
Teachers are playing a vital role in the education process and their attitudes toward inclusion have a significant effect on the implementation and success of inclusion (Cook, 2011). Teachers possess positive attitudes toward inclusive education but they express their concerns related to inadequate education process and the means of educating students with special educational needs (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1996). Other research (Saloviita, 2018) showed that teachers develop neutral to negative attitudes toward the inclusive education. Furthermore, men teaching in the mainstream school adopt positive attitudes in a lower level than women, teacher in a low self-efficacy level expressed positive attitudes in a low degree, but teachers who participated in special education seminars or completed a special education master, formed positive attitudes toward the inclusion policy (Vaz et al., 2015). Other study concluded that going aged teachers are characterized by positive attitudes toward the education for all (Monsen, Ewing & Kwoka, 2014). Teachers who work in primary education express positive attitudes toward the inclusion of students with low to mild degree of disability and express their beliefs to the effectiveness to the inclusion education practices (Ćwirynkało et al., 2017). Secondary education teachers support the inclusive education, especially for those who have taught a student with special needs and those who are qualified in special education (Bhatnagar & Das, 2014). This result was verified by another study (Yuen & Westwood, 2001) but teachers develop negative attitudes toward to the inclusion of students with behavioral problems, severe sensory impairments and mental retardation and their positive attitudes are referred to the inclusion of students with physical disabilities and mild speech and health problems.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedIn the current study participated 154 teachers who work in general education. The questionnaire used was the Multidimensional Attitudes toward Inclusive Education Scale (MATIES) (Mahat, 2008). It consists of 18 items, scored in a 6-point Likert scale. The items are equally organized in the three attitude subscales: cognitive, affective, behavioral. Three of the items of cognitive domain and all the items of behavioral domain are reverse coded, in order for the higher score to state a more positive attitude toward to inclusive education. Total Cronbachs' a ranges from 0.77 to 1.30 and item loading higher than 0.50. For the three subscales Cronbachs' a resulted as follow: cognitive, a = 0.77, affective, a= 0.78, behavioral, a = 0.91. Second part is consisted of demographics variables, such as, teaching school (primary-secondary school), teaching lessons, qualification level, years of teaching in public and private education, attending special education seminars, previous teaching experience with students with special needs, cognition of special education law, gender, age (Tsakiridou & Polyzopoulou, 2014).
The adaptation of the instrument followed the same procedure as previous research
(Tsakiridou and Polyzopoulou, 2019).
The questionnaires were created in a Google form type and the responses were recorded on a sheet from where they were collected for further process (Lao et al., 2022).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe Greek version of questionnaire consists of 18 items. According to confirmative factor analysis, there emerged the three factors of the original instrument (KMO = 0.86, Bartlett's test of sphericity = 1213.816, p < 0.001) that explains the 72.56% of the total dispersion.
The results showed differences concerning family member with disability, attending special needs training, seminars topic, previous teaching experience, knowledge about special education law, primary and secondary level education, general and technical high school, teaching lesson, years of teaching in public and private education, age.
Findings may have a reasonable degree of generalizability to teachers groups and they could be used as base so that they can expand in an national and international level (Boyle et al. 2013).
ReferencesBhatnagar, N., & Das, A. (2014). Regular School Teachers' Concerns and Perceived Barriers to Implement Inclusive Education in New Delhi, India. International Journal of Instruction, 7(2), 89-102.
Boyle, C., Topping, K., & Jindal-Snape, D. (2013). Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion in high schools. Teachers and teaching, 19(5), 527-542.
Cook, B. G. (2001). A comparison of teachers' attitudes toward their included students with mild and severe disabilities. The journal of special education, 34(4), 203-213.
Ćwirynkało, K., Kisovar-Ivanda, T., Gregory, J. L., Żyta, A., Arciszewska, A., & Zrilić, S. (2017). Attitudes of Croatian and Polish elementary school teachers towards inclusive education of children with disabilities. Hrvatska revija za rehabilitacijska istraživanja, 53, 252-264.
Lao, K. A. C., Lao, H. A., Siason, V. A., Cabangcala, R. B., Cadapan, E. D., & Alieto, E. O. (2022). Attitude towards Inclusive Education (IE) among Prospective Teachers: Is there Gender Polarization?. International Journal Of Special Education, 37(3).
Monsen, J. J., Ewing, D. L., & Kwoka, M. (2014). Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion, perceived adequacy of support and classroom learning environment. Learning environments research, 17(1), 113-126.
Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (1996). Teacher perceptions of mainstreaming/inclusion, 1958–1995: A research synthesis. Exceptional children, 63(1), 59-74.
Tsakiridou, H., & Polyzopoulou, K. (2014). Greek teachers’ attitudes toward the inclusion of students with special educational needs. American Journal of Educational Research, 2(4), 208-218.
Tsakiridou, H., & Polyzopoulou, K. (2019). Educators’ attitudes concerning teaching of students with special educational needs in the mainstream Greek school. International Journal of Innovation Education and Research, 7 (7), 317-337.
Vaz, S., Wilson, N., Falkmer, M., Sim, A., Scott, M., Cordier, R., & Falkmer, T. (2015). Factors associated with primary school teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with disabilities. PloS one, 10(8), e0137002.
Yuen, M., & Westwood, P. (2001). Integrating students with special needs in Hong Kong secondary schools: Teachers' attitudes and their possible relationship to guidance training. International journal of special education, 16(2), 29-84.
04. Inclusive Education
Paper
Attitudes of Romanian Teachers Towards Inclusive Education
Damaris Pungila, Simona Sava
West University of Timisoara, Romania
Presenting Author: Pungila, Damaris
Ensuring an effective inclusive education of all students, irrespective of their background, is the strive of any school. Each school needs to learn ongoingly to improve and innovate its practices in this regard, as the learning needs of their diverse students are to be addressed in the most appropriate manner. This is an ongoing, transversal concern, irrespective of the country or of the cultural context.
Inclusive education involves providing educational opportunities to all students, regardless of disability or group, but valuing all aspects of human diversity. To achieve this desiderata, attitudinal, structural, relational and environmental changes are needed (Cologon & Mevawalla, 2018). Although the general meaning of the concept refers to all categories of students, in this study we narrow the meaning to the inclusion of students with disabilities in mainstream education.
One of the most researched topics in the field of inclusive education is the theme of teachers' attitude (Mieghem, Verschueren, Petry & Struyf, 2018). This is due, on the one hand, to the fact that the teachers’ influence on students' progress is one of the largest (Hattie, 2014, Mincu, 2015) and on the other hand, due to the fact that teachers are key social actors able to support quality and equity (Mincu, 2022). The teacher's attitude has a direct impact on his behavior in the classroom and indirectly affects the educational experience the student with disabilities has in the school (Monsen, Ewing, & Kwoka, 2014). Thus, the research of teachers' attitude towards inclusive education is of crucial importance for finding the most suitable solutions to support teachers in planning and carrying out educational activities adapted to each student.
Attitude is defined as a "relatively durable and general evaluation of an object, person, group, problem or concept on a scale ranging from negative to positive" (Van den Bos, 2015, p.88). Attitude is defined by three components: cognitive, affective and behavioral (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). In this paper, we rely on the mentioned definitions.
Attitudes towards inclusive education have been investigated in countries across Europe and beyond. The most recent systematic literature review on this topic carried out on studies published between 2000 and 2020 highlights that the general attitude of teachers is a favorable one and that over the years it has progressed (Guillemot, Lacroix & Nocus, 2022).
The relationship between various factors and the way teachers see inclusive education has been investigated in different studies in Romania. They demonstrated that there is a link between teachers' stereotypes and inclusive education (Pachița & Gherguț, 2021), and between the perspectives that they have towards inclusive education (Marin, 2016). The aspects identified in these studies from Romania with regarding inclusive education, as well as recommendations on which they do, point to the need for more detailed research on this topic in Romania.
Our specific purpose is to establish whether Romanian teachers are in favor of inclusion or not. We also want to investigate how the attitude towards inclusive education differs according to factors such as professional training in the field of inclusive education, experience in education, the level of education at which he/she teaches, previous experience in including students with SEN.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe research was carried out on a group of 1038 pre-university teachers from all levels of education. The research was conducted online. The questionnaires were sent to schools and regional school centers in the country to be completed between October 1 - 17, 2022.
To identify their attitudes towards inclusive education was used ‘The Multidimensional Attitudes toward Inclusive Education Scale’ (MATIES) (Mahat, 2008). This scale was chosen because it follows the definition approached by us in the research and evaluates attitudes on three dimensions: cognitive, affective and behavioral with 6 items on each dimension. The response is measured on a Likert scale from 1 to 6 in which 1 means strongly disagree and 6 means agree strong. The scale has good internal consistency for all the three dimensions: for the cognitive Cronbach alpha= 0.77, for the affective one, cronbach alpha =0.78, and for the behavioral one, cronbach alpha =0.91 (Mahat, 2008).
The MATIES scale has been used so far both in the European space (Desombre, Delaval & Jury, 2021), as well as in that of the United States (Barnes & Gaines, 2015), in the African one (Butakor, Ampadu, Suleiman, 2018) and in Asia (Jun et al, 2022, Hassanein, Alshaboul & Ibrahim, 2021), and showed both the direction teachers' attitudes, as well as influencing factors of their attitude.
The scale was translated by the reverse translation method and culturaly adapted for the Romanian space, obtaining an internal consistency similar to the original scale: for the cognitive Cronbach alpha = 0.78, for the affective one, cronbach alpha =0.83, and for the behavioral one, cronbach alpha =0.90.
Also, the participants completed a questionnaire with demographic data regarding gender, experience in education, level of education at which they teach, training in inclusive education, previous experience in activities with students with SEN, the presence of a student with SEN among the people close to them.
The collected data will be statistically analyzed to identify the averages and correlations between the investigated factors and the attitude of the teachers.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe attitude of teachers plays an important role in achieving the goal of inclusive education. In this perspective, the purpose of the present study was to identify whether Romanian teachers have favorable attitudes or not towards inclusive education. The preliminary results show that Romanian teachers have favorable attitudes, and one of the most important factors influencing their attitude is extent of dedicated training they have for inclusive education. On the second place comes the infrastructure of support the benefit from once attempting to include students with SEN in their classroom.
Another purpose of the present study was to investigate how the attitude towards inclusive education differs according to factors such as professional training in the field of inclusive education, experience in education, the level of education at which he teaches, previous experience in including students with SEN. For this, we carry out the statistical analyzes to identify the correlations between the factors investigated with the help of the questionnaire with demographic data and the scores obtained on the MATIES scale on each dimension and in general. Likewise, the averages obtained on the MATIES scale for each factor will be compared to identify whether those with more experience have more favorable attitudes or not. These analyzes will be performed for all the factors considered. Following the analysis, we expect to identify the factors that most influence the teachers' attitude and the demographic characteristics of the teachers who reported more favorable attitudes. It is still a work in progress.
ReferencesBarnes, M. C., & Gaines, T. (2015). Teachers’ Attitudes and Perceptions of Inclusion in Relation to Grade Level and Years of Experience, Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education, 3 (3).
Butakor, P. K., Ampadu, E., Suleiman, S.J. (2018). Analysis of Ghanaian teachers' attitudes toward inclusive education. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 24 (11), 1237-1252. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2018.1512661
Cologon, K., & Mevawalla, Z. (2018). Increasing Inclusion in Early Childhood: Key Word Sign as a Communication Partner Intervention. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 28, 20, 902–920.
Desombre, C., Delaval, M. & Jury, M. (2021). Influence of Social Support on Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education. Educational Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.736535
Eagly, A.H. & Chaiken, S. (1993). The nature of attitudes, în Eagly, A.H.& Chaiken, The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College, 1-21.
Guillemot, F., Lacroix, F. & Nocus, I. (2022). Teachers' attitude towards inclusive education from 2000 to 2020: An extended meta-analysis. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedro.2022.100175
Hattie, J. (2014). Învățarea vizibilă: Ghid pentru profesori. Editura Treri: București.
Hassanein, E.A., Alshaboul, Y.M., Ibrahim, S. (2021). The impact of teacher preparation on preservice teachers' attitudes toward inclusive education in Qatar, 7, (9). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07925
Jun, A.J. Ai, Jihong, Z., M., Horn, E., Hao, L., Jingjing, H., Yanjuan M. (2022). Examination of Chinese Teachers' Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education. Journal of international special needs educational http://dx.doi.org/10.9782/JISNE-D-21-00004
Mahat, M. (2008). The development of a psychometrically-sound instrument to measure teachers' multidimensional attitudes toward inclusive education (MATIAS). International Journal of Special Education, 23(2), 82-92).
Marin, E. (2016). Teachers’ perspective towards the implementation of inclusive education, Journal of Educational Sciences.
Mieghem, A.V., Verschueren, K., Petry, K. & Struyf, E. (2018). An analysis of research on inclusive education: a systematic search and meta review. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 6, 675-689.
Mincu, M. (2015) The Italian middle school in a deregulation era: modernity through path-dependency and global models. Comparative Education, 51 (3), 446-462.
Mincu, M. (2022). Inovație și evaluare la momentul crizei educaționale. În Păun, E. (coord.). Școala viitorului sau viitorul școlii? Perspective asupra educației postpandemice. (p. 159-174). București: Polirom.
Monsen, J. J., Ewing, D. L., & Kwoka, M. (2014). Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion, perceived adequacy of support and classroom learning environment. Learning Environments Research, 17, 113-126.
Pachița, I.C. & Gherguț, A. (2021). Inclusive education and stereotypes among teachers from mainstream schools. Journal of Educational Sciences, XXII, 1(43)
VandenBos, G. R. (2015). APA Dictionary of Psychology. Washington: Maple Press.
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