Measuring Inclusive Education in Portuguese Schools: Adaptation and Validation of a Questionnaire

Abstract

The debate about inclusive education has gained considerable attention in policy, research, and practice in the last decades. Therefore, there is also a growing interest in assessing how inclusive education occurs in schools. Self-assessment and self-reflection tools are strategic to examine schools’ inclusion and guide needed changes. This study attempts to provide Portuguese schools with self-assessment tools for improvement. Themis Inclusion Tool was translated and adapted into a Portuguese version named Resources and Practices for Inclusive Education and evaluated the instrument’s psychometric structure. A web survey was completed online by 924 participants. An EFA suggested two different factors: Inclusive Resources, human, technical and technological resources used to promote learning and; Inclusive Practices, beliefs and behaviors that can be implemented to promote learning. These two factors were supported by confirmatory analysis. Overall, the Resources and Practices for Inclusive Education presented a robust factorial structure and good psychometric properties, appearing to be a valid and reliable measure for assessing inclusive education in Portuguese schools.

Fluency Training for Struggling Readers: Examining the Effects of a Tier-2 Intervention in Third Graders

“…This study also emphasizes the potential benefits of incorporating universal screening data to identify students who may benefit from additional support and evidence-based interventions. While it is worth noting that universal screening is not yet a regular procedure in Portugal [14], its implementation could lead to early identification and informed decision-making processes within MTSS frameworks, using a preventive and evidence-based approach [6,11].…”

“…The shift from RTI to MTSS represents a move towards an holistic and inclusive education, aiming for the success of all students [11][12][13]. Although MTSS frameworks are widely adopted in schools [9,12,13], in Portugal, these practices gained recognition in schools in 2018 with the introduction of the Decree-Law 54/2018 [14]. The growth of these service delivery models is fuelled by evidence suggesting that MTSS allows for the early identification of learning and behavioral challenges and timely intervention for students who are at risk for poor learning, mitigating future challenges [15].…”

From Policies to Practices: Factors Related to the Use of Inclusive Practices in Portugal

“…The 24 items of the Resources and Practices for Inclusion (RPI) [43] questionnaire capture two dimensions: inclusive resources and inclusive practices. All items had a 5-point Likert-scale response format (1-completely disagree to 5-completely agree), with higher scores indicating greater inclusivity.…”

Development of a Group Emergent Literacy Screening Tool

“…The number of available screening tools for measuring emergent literacy skills is generally increasing in most countries [2,6,13,16,17,22,23]. Usually, these tools integrate brief, easy-to-use measures with clear scoring and interpretation, have a low cost, and provide information about the children's performance in emergent literacy skills [12,13]. The results of such screenings are interpreted relative to at least one threshold, allowing users to make decisions on whether a child requires additional assessment or support interventions [1,21].…”

“…Consequently, many children who are at risk of difficulties, but who do not exhibit significant "red flags", go undetected until there is a severe reading or writing problem [10,11]. Nevertheless, there has recently been a shift in Portuguese educational policies towards a new framework that emphasizes the need for equity and inclusion for all students [12,13] through multitier systems of support, early identification, and timely intervention. This conceptual framework aims to ensure that each student has the best opportunities for academic success, allows for the identification of children who are at risk, monitors the progress of all children to adjust the type, intensity, and frequency of intervention, and emphasizes that each child should receive evidence-based instruction and the implementation of levels of support considering the child's response to the intervention [14].…”