Teachers’ Experience, Attitudes, Feelings and Behavioural Intentions towards Children with Special Educational Needs

Abstract

This project examined teachers' attitudes to children with special educational needs. Understanding the implicit and explicit attitudes of teachers is an important precursor to improving teaching practices for children with special needs. Participants (N = 77) were pre-service teachers and experienced teachers during in-service training courses. Results showed that behavioural intentions related to explicit rather than implicit attitudes, and that feelings of guilt and anxiety were associated with intentions for negative actions. Profiles of attitudes were substantially similar in terms of personal and teaching experiences. However, attitudes were less positive about children with low social skills and more positive about children with low cognitive skills. Findings have direct application to training teachers of children with special educational needs.

Implicit Gender Stereotypes and Essentialist Beliefs Predict Preservice Teachers’ Tracking Recommendations

“…Particularly, implicit stereotypes proved to uniquely contribute to predicting variation of the stereotypicality of school career recommendations to an extent that explicit measures did not. Implicit processes in teachers have previously been investigated toward ethnic minority students (Glock, Kneer, & Kovacs, 2013; Denessen, Hornstra, Voeten, & Holland, 2010;Vezzali, Giovannini, & Capozza, 2012) or students with special education needs (Hornstra, Denessen, Bakker, van den Bergh, & Voeten, 2010;Kelly & Barnes-Holmes, 2013;Levins, Bornholt, & Lennon, 2005). It remains important for future research to address the question of whether and how teachers' implicit gender stereotypes influence their behavior in class, their decisions in the academic context in general, and their track recommendations in particular.…”

Assessing teacher attitude toward the inclusion of students with autism.

“…This will help with teacher attitude toward inclusive practices that include students with more severe disabilities. Levins, Bornholt, and Lennon (2005) investigated the attitudes of teachers toward students with special learning needs. There were four main goals identified: (a) examine the effects of the teachers' personal experiences with special educational needs on attitudes; (b) examine the effects of professional experience on attitudes specifically attitudes of pre-service and in-service teachers; (c) explore the attitudes toward students with specific needs such as a learning disability, ADHD, or hearing impairment; and (d) look at the components of attitudes that relate to the teacher's behavioral intentions which contribute to behavioral actions.…”

The manifestation of student teachers’ knowledge, understanding, emotions, and experiences in their essays about special needs

“…Testitud on teadmisi (Seepter, 2010), hoiakuid ja käitumismustreid (Levins, Bornholt, & Lennon, 2005). Küsimustikega on uuritud emotsioone (Kikas & Timoštsuk, 2016), hoiakuid (Ting & Gilmore, 2012) ning kogemusi erivajadustest (Gehrke, Cocchiarella, Harris, & Puckett, 2014).…”

“…Mitmed uuringud on näidanud, et õpetaja arusaam kaasavast haridusest sõltub ka erivajaduse liigist (Avramidis, Bayliss, & Burden, 2000;Čagran & Schmidt, 2011;Levins et al, 2005). Õpetajad on kergemate erivajaduste suhtes enamasti positiivsemalt meelestatud (Čagran & Schmidt, 2011), nad on nõus kaasama füüsilise ja meelepuudega ning kergemate õpiraskustega õpilasi, kuid mitte emotsionaal-ja käitumisraskustega lapsi (Hastings & Oakford, 2003;Levins et al, 2005;Markova et al, 2016).…”

“…Õpetajad on kergemate erivajaduste suhtes enamasti positiivsemalt meelestatud (Čagran & Schmidt, 2011), nad on nõus kaasama füüsilise ja meelepuudega ning kergemate õpiraskustega õpilasi, kuid mitte emotsionaal-ja käitumisraskustega lapsi (Hastings & Oakford, 2003;Levins et al, 2005;Markova et al, 2016). Samas on leitud, et õpetajate ootused meelepuudega, nt kurtide laste suhtes on nii õppimise kui ka käitumise osas väiksemad (Sari, 2007).…”