Elsevier

Teaching and Teacher Education

Volume 29, January 2013, Pages 46-52
Teaching and Teacher Education

Teacher attitudes and behavior toward the inclusion of children with social, emotional and behavioral difficulties in mainstream schools: An application of the theory of planned behavior

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2012.08.006Get rights and content

Abstract

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used to examine relationships between teacher attitudes and behavior toward children with social, emotional and behavioral difficulties (SEBD). One hundred and eleven elementary school teachers completed questionnaires. Teacher perception of their school principals' expectations (subjective norm) predicted teacher behaviors. Teachers who had attended more in-service training (INSET) sessions held more positive feelings, but teachers with more experience were less willing to work with children with SEBD. Findings suggest that school principals have a central role in promoting an inclusive ethos within their schools. INSET could focus more on challenging beliefs.

Highlights

► The study examined teacher beliefs and behaviors with respect to children with SEBD. ► Perception of head teacher expectations was a key influence. ► Teachers who attended more INSET sessions were more positive. ► But more experienced teachers were less willing to work with this group.

Section snippets

Applying the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to investigate teacher attitudes and behavior

The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) provides a useful framework for addressing the relationship between attitude and behavior. It is an extension of the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) and proposes that in order to predict a specific behavior, attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention in relation to that behavior need to be taken into consideration. Subjective norm is an individual's perception of how significant others will

Participants

General classroom teachers in mainstream schools from a convenience sample of 24 Scottish school districts were invited to participate in the study, out of 32 school districts in Scotland. Twelve districts granted permission and all 483 schools were invited to participate. Following up those 61 schools who responded positively, two hundred and eighty-three questionnaire packs were distributed, of which 92 were completed and returned. An email with the link to the online survey was forwarded to

Results

Log transformations were applied to deal with outliers. The variable, teaching experience, had one outlier (‘reporting 42 years experience’), subjective norm had two outliers (both with a low score of 5), behavioral intention had two outliers (low scores of 5.05 and 5.15), and INSET had three outliers (a high number of 15, 16 and 20 sessions). Log transformation was applied, as suggested by Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) which pulled outliers from the variables teaching experience (SEBD), INSET

Discussion

The present study employed TPB to examine teachers' attitudes and behavior toward children with SEBD. It was found that teachers who held more positive beliefs and higher levels of perceived behavioral control (teaching self-efficacy) had a higher level of behavioral intention to engage in inclusive practices in working with children with SEBD. These findings support those of Oh et al. (2010) and Palou and Norwich (2002). Furthermore, subjective norm, as measured by teachers' views of their

References (60)

  • E. Avramidis et al.

    Teachers' attitudes towards integration/inclusion: a review of the literature

    European Journal of Special Needs Education

    (2002)
  • S. Batsiou et al.

    Attitudes and intentions of Greek and Cypriot primary education teachers towards teaching pupils with special education needs in mainstream schools

    International Journal of Inclusive Education

    (2008)
  • W. Bender et al.

    Teachers' attitudes towards increased mainstreaming: implementing effective instruction for students with learning disabilities

    Journal of Learning Disabilities

    (1995)
  • K. Brady et al.

    What teacher factors influence their attributions for children's difficulties in learning?

    British Journal of Educational Psychology

    (2008)
  • B. Cagran et al.

    Attitudes of Slovene teachers towards the inclusion of pupils with different types of special needs in primary school

    Educational Studies

    (2011)
  • J. Cohen

    Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences

    (1988)
  • B.G. Cook

    A comparison of teachers' attitudes toward their included students with mild and severe disabilities

    Journal of Special Education

    (2001)
  • B.G. Cook et al.

    Inclusive teachers' attitudinal ratings of their students with disabilities

    Journal of Special Education

    (2007)
  • P. Cooper

    Is ‘inclusion’ just a buzz word?

    Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties

    (2004)
  • A. De Boer et al.

    Regular primary schoolteachers' attitudes towards inclusive education: a review of the literature

    International Journal of Inclusive Education

    (2010)
  • A.H. Eagly et al.

    The psychology of attitudes

    (1993)
  • N. Elik et al.

    Pre-service teachers' open-minded thinking dispositions, readiness to learn, and attitudes about learning and behavioral difficulties in students

    European Journal of Teacher Education

    (2010)
  • P. Farrell et al.

    Recent trends in the re-integration of pupils with emotional and behavioral difficulties in the United Kingdom

    School Psychology International

    (1999)
  • F. Faul et al.

    G*Power 3: a flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences

    Behavior Research Methods

    (2007)
  • A. Field

    Discovering Statistics Using SPSS

    (2009)
  • M. Fishbein et al.

    The role of theory in developing effective health communications

    Journal of Communication

    (2006)
  • C. Forlin et al.

    Inclusive practices – how accepting are teachers?

    International Journal of Disability, Development and Education

    (1996)
  • D. Fuchs et al.

    What's so ‘special’ about special education?

    Phi Delta Kappan

    (1995)
  • D. Ganster et al.

    Social desirability response effects: three alternative models

    Academy of Management Journal

    (1983)
  • S. Gibson et al.

    Teacher efficacy: a construct validation

    Journal of Educational Psychology

    (1984)
  • Cited by (192)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text