In our study of 429 special and regular education teachers, we examined the impact of a 'Learning Disability' (LD) label on teachers' performance expectations. Teachers exposed to the LD label had lower expectations for the student's academic achievement. Special education teachers showed lower expectations overall, but positive attitudes towards inclusion appeared to mitigate some negative effects of the LD label.
We examined how a short-term training on autism affected the attitudes of 50 pre-service teachers towards students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Results showed that explicit attitudes significantly improved after training, while implicit attitudes remained neutral. The study suggests that future research on sensitive topics should combine both measures, and that explicit attitudes may be more susceptible to bias than implicit attitudes.
In diesem Beitrag bereiten wir die Ergebnisse einer Metaanalyse für Praktikerinnen auf. Diese zeigt positive Auswirkungen von Fortbildungsprogrammen für inklusive Bildung, insbesondere auf das Wissen und die Fähigkeiten von Lehrkräften. Weiterhin leiten wir Empfehlungen für Lehrkräfte und Fortbildnerinnen ab.
This study examined the special educational needs (SEN) allocation practices across Austrian federal states by (a) surveying the current allocation practices, (b) exploring the reasons for disparities among the states, and (c) conducting a process analysis from all stakeholders' perspectives. The research comprised four sub-studies: data analysis on 26,102 compulsory school pupils with SEN to analyze socio-demographic, disability forms, and educational pathways differences; a survey (N = 289) among teachers, parents, and school officials on the SEN assessment processes; an analysis of assessments and decisions (N = 454; 13,705 pages) to identify quality characteristics in SEN allocation; and expert interviews (N = 31) to provide a comprehensive view of the allocation process.
Die Studie prüft die Kurzskala PREIS-K zur Messung von Einstellungen zum inklusiven Schulsystem. Die Skala zeigt eine stabile Faktorenstruktur und Messäquivalenz zwischen Lehrkräften und Eltern. Sie ermöglicht ökonomische Untersuchungen der Einstellungen zu Inklusion und eignet sich für große Vergleichs- und Längsschnittstudien.
We conducted a meta-analysis of 342 studies to examine the effectiveness of professional development for teachers regarding inclusive education. We found positive effects on all outcome categories, including large effects on teachers' knowledge and moderate effects on teachers' skills. Long-term training with high practical relevance and active learning opportunities was found to be most effective.
In this study we found that attitudes towards inclusive education are significantly influenced by social context (i.e. the perceived attitude of the organization conducting the survey). Social desirability, a neglected issue in this research area, challenges the validity of numerous studies, as a positive bias emerges when participants are surveyed by a university. The study suggests steps to reduce validity problems caused by social desirability in researching attitudes towards inclusion.