Regular Students Attitude toward Students with Special Educational Needs: A Comparative Study in Inclusive Private and Public Primary Schools

Abstract

The aim of this study was to the comparative attitude of regular students toward the students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) based on inclusive private and public primary schools. The quantitative research method was selected for collecting data for the study. 266 students from several schools were involved in this research. In order to answer the research question of this study, the attitude of the students was measured using Chedoke-McMaster Attitudes Towards Children with Handicaps (CATCH) by Rosenbaum (1988) and had been adapted with good reliability (0,7). CATCH consists of 18 items which includes 3 dimensions of attitude (knowledge, affect and behavior). Data collection took place in the classrooms in November 2017. The result showed that there is a significant difference in attitude score between students from inclusive public primary schools (M= 47.6, SD=5.2) and students from inclusive private primary schools (M= 46.01, SD=4.47); t(264)=2.56, p<0.05. This study reveals that regular students' knowledge about the students with SEN is a possible reason to explain differences in attitude score between students from inclusive private and public primary schools. These findings also suggest future researcher to consider measurement tools to examine the attitude of regular students toward students with SEN.