Special and General Education Teachers' Attitudes Regarding Successful Versus Unsuccessful Inclusion in Elementary Schools

Abstract

This study investigated teachers' attitudes of successful versus unsuccessful inclusion. All subjects were general and special education fourth and fifth grade teachers in an elementary suburban school district. One instrument was used for data collection in this research, which consisted of a survey with a rating scale and a written interview to gather teachers' attitudes. The planned analysis was conducted using SPSS (Noonan, 2003, version 12.0) in order to gather descriptive statistics (including mean, percentages, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics, using a paired sample T Test to determine whether a statistically significant difference existed between teachers' attitudes and the success of inclusion. Significant differences were found between questions one and two, one and three, one and four, two and seven, three and eight, four and seven; and five and seven. Many teachers felt as though inclusion was a good idea, however there were many supports and services that they felt they needed, such as knowledge and training. Generally, special educators and general educators had the same types of feelings; however, special educators had more of a positive attitude toward inclusion as a whole. Teachers also agreed that inclusion helps students academically; however, they also agreed that the demands of the curriculum make it difficult to implement inclusion.