Factors associated with primary school teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with disabilities

Sharmila Vaz, Nathan Wilson, Marita Falkmer, Angela Sim, Melissa Scott, Reinie Cordier, Torbjörn Falkmer

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    114 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Objective: Teachers' attitudes toward inclusion are often based on the practical implementation of inclusive education rather than a specific ideology and understanding of inclusiveness. This study aimed to identify the factors associated with primary school teachers' attitudes towards inclusion of students with all disabilities in regular schools. Method: Seventy four primary school teachers participated in a cross-sectional survey conducted in Western Australia. Teachers' attitudes and efficacy toward integration of students with disabilities were measured using the Opinions Relative to Integration of Students with Disabilities scale and Bandura's Teacher Efficacy scale respectively. Results: Four teacher attributes—age, gender, teaching self-efficacy and training collectively explained 42% of the variability in teachers' attitude toward including students with disabilities. Conclusion: The current study further contributes to the accumulation of knowledge that can unpack the complex pattern of factors that should be considered to promote positive attitudes towards inclusive schools.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article numbere0137002
    Number of pages12
    JournalPLoS One
    Volume10
    Issue number8
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2015

    Open Access - Access Right Statement

    © 2015 Vaz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

    Keywords

    • attitudes
    • children with disabilities
    • inclusion
    • teachers

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Factors associated with primary school teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with disabilities'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this