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: Olufemi Aremu Fakolade, Samuel Olufemi Adeniyi, 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: https://iejee.com/index.php/IEJEE/article/view/272
• ISSN: 1307-9298; 1307-9298

Attitudes about inclusion are extremely complex and vary from teacher to teacher and school to school. This article explores the attitudes of teachers about inclusion of special needs children in their secondary schools in general education. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design, with 60 teachers as participants from selected secondary schools in Oyo State, Nigeria. Four hypotheses were postulated at the significant level of .05. The instrument, a questionnaire with question items on demographic information like gender, marital status, professionalism and teaching experience has a general reliability coefficient alpha of .83. A t-test method of analysis was the main statistical method used to test the 4 generated hypotheses. The findings revealed that the attitude of male teachers is 39.4, while that of female teacher is 43.3, thus, the t-test analysis shows that the calculated t-test is 2.107, which is greater than the critical t (t=1.960). This implies that female teachers have more positive attitude towards the inclusion of special needs students than their male counterparts. Furthermore, the results reveal that significant difference exists between married and single teachers in their attitude towards special need students. And that professionally qualified teacher tends to have a more favourable attitude towards the inclusion of special need students than their non-professional qualified teachers. It was recommended that teachers should attend seminars and conferences to improve their knowledge about ways of practicing and accepting inclusion for a better tomorrow for our special needs children in Nigeria.