Attitude of teachers towards the inclusion of special needs children in general education classroom: the case of teachers in some selected schools in Nigeria

• Main Authors: Samuel Olufemi ADENIYI, Olufemi Aremu FAKOLADE, Adeyinka TELLA
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kura Publishing 2009-06-01
• Series: International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education
• Subjects: Inclusion; attitude; special needs children; general education
• Online Access: http://www.iejee.com/1_3_2009/tella.pdf

Attitudes about inclusion are extremely complex and vary from teacher to teacher and schoolto school. This article explores the attitudes of teachers about inclusion of special needschildren in their secondary schools in general education. This study adopted a descriptivesurvey research design, with 60 teachers as participants from selected secondary schools inOyo State, Nigeria. Four hypotheses were postulated at the significant level of .05. Theinstrument, a questionnaire with question items on demographic information like gender,marital status, professionalism and teaching experience has a general reliability coefficientalpha of .83. A t-test method of analysis was the main statistical method used to test the 4generated hypotheses. The findings revealed that the attitude of male teachers is 39.4, whilethat of female teacher is 43.3, thus, the t-test analysis shows that the calculated t-test is2.107, which is greater than the critical t (t=1.960). This implies that female teachers havemore positive attitude towards the inclusion of special needs students than their malecounterparts. Furthermore, the results reveal that significant difference exists betweenmarried and single teachers in their attitude towards special need students. And thatprofessionally qualified teacher tends to have a more favourable attitude towards theinclusion of special need students than their non-professional qualified teachers. It wasrecommended that teachers should attend seminars and conferences to improve theirknowledge about ways of practicing and accepting inclusion for a better tomorrow for ourspecial needs children in Nigeria.