Mainstreaming in education

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a selected number of variables can predict the attitudes of regular-education elementary school teachers toward specific issues on inclusion. Specifically, this study analyzed the relationship between the criterion variable of attitude, and the predictor variables of experience with teaching handicapped students, number of years of teaching experience, number of special education courses and inservice training hours completed, age, grade level taught, and gender. Additionally, the issue of whether teachers have a positive attitude toward inclusion was addressed. The instrument used in this study was developed by researchers at the Division of Special Education and Rehabilitation, Syracuse University (Erevelles, Black, & Meyer, 1992). It contains 22 questions and uses a 5-point Likert-type scale. However, after conducting a reliability study, only 16 of the 22 questions were used for this study. Validation of the instrument was obtained by submitting the instrument to several authorities in the area of special education. Reliability was obtained by the use of a FORTRAN program to maximize coefficient alpha (Morris, 1978a, 1978b). The entire population of 473 respondents showed a coefficient alpha of .85. The sample of 20 schools was randomly selected from the 115 elementary schools within the Broward County Public School System in Florida, during the 1994-1995 school year. Surveys were distributed to 473 regular-education teachers from the 20 elementary schools. Eight hypotheses were developed to determine if there was a significant difference between attitudes and the aforementioned variables. Multiple linear regression was the statistical tool used for data analysis. All hypotheses were tested at the.05 level of significance. Based on the findings of this study, years of teaching experience and age were the only variables that predicted the attitudes of regular-education elementary school teachers toward the inclusion of students with disabilities in the regular classroom setting. Additionally, a significant multiple correlation of.07 (F[7,465] = 4.97, p < .0005) was evidenced in predicting the criterion variable of attitude from all predictor variables. Results also revealed teachers' negative attitudes toward the topic of inclusion.

The purpose of this study is to compare the peer acceptance of regular fourth grade students between an emotionally handicapped student and normal student under positive, negative and neutral teacher attitude conditions. Six groups of fourth grade students were randomly selected from three Seminole County elementary schools. Twenty students were in each group. Each group was randomly assigned to one of the six conditions and viewed a audio-visual presentation. After the presentation, each student completed the peer acceptance questionnaire. The mean scores for each group were analyzed using a "2 x 3" analysis of variance with the effects tested at the .05 level of significance across all levels. No significant difference in level of peer acceptance was found between the emotionally handicapped and normal labels. There was a significant difference in level of peer acceptance under the negative orientation versus the positive and neutral orientations across the emotionally handicapped and normal labels. In addition, no interactions exist between the emotionally handicapped and normal labels under positive, negative, or neutral orientations. As both the concept and practice of mainstreaming are expanding, it was concluded that the results of this study can provide important insight as to the emphasis of procedures and direction for future research. Inservice to teachers on all aspects of mainstreaming and emphasis on positive peer orientation will result in more efficient integration of exceptional students into regular classes.