1. By Ambreen Anis Nagori Course Facilitator Dr.Iffet Sultana M.Ed First Semester (Inclusive Education) Iqra University

2.  The impact of training on pre-service teachers’ attitudes and concerns about inclusive education and sentiments about persons with disabilities  Written by Umesh Sharma, Chris Forlin, Tim Loreman  Received: 13 Sep 2007  Accepted: 29 Nov 2008  Published online: Volume 23, Issue 7 03 Dec 2008  Article Views: 2827

3.  Education for all students – nationally and internationally  Inclusion of students with disability in regular schools  Teacher training institutions to incorporation Inclusion as a subject  Teachers training institutions must ensure training that new teachers are trained to teach effectively in classroom  New teacher must be trained to deal students with a variety of learning styles

4.  A set of 603 pre-service teachers’ was collected  Teachers’ were from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore  This study reports: “The effects of training in inclusive education on pre-service teacher attitudes towards inclusion, their sentiments about people with a disability and their concerns about inclusion.”  The result are discussed in relation to a range of factors that have produced gains in their attitudes, sentiments and concerns that cohorts from different countries

5. Inclusion of students with disabilities into regular school is now one of the most significant issues facing the education community both nationally and internationally.

6.  Inclusion of students into mainstream school is a worldwide trend  Countries in west (UK, USA, Canada, Australia) have legislations to promote inclusive practices  Developing countries (India, Philippines) have also similar legislations  Researchers (Avramidis and Norwich 2002;Forlin)have come to the conclusion that successful implementation of inclusion reforms depends largely on the goodwill of educators  Teachers with positive attitude towards inclusion benefit students with disabilities (Bender, Vail, and Scott 1995;Brophy and Good 1991;Sharma et al 2006)

7.  Factors that influence the school educators’ attitude towards students with disabilities are: 1. Teachers of children in lower grades have more positive attitudes as compare to the teachers of children in higher grades (Savage and Wienke 1989) 2. Students with mild learning problems are more favourable by teachers than the students with severe learning problems (Center and Ward1987;Forlin1995) 3. Educator who have experienced with persons with disabilities seems to be more to include students with disabilities in their classrooms as compare to those educators who never had such contact (Hodge and Jansma 1999) 4. Those educators who have received disability education are more likely to have positive attitude towards inclusion

8.  Researchers investigated the attitudes of a pre-service teachers at the beginning of the program of teachers education(Avramidis, Bayliss and Burden 2000; Hasting and Oakford 2003; Wilczenski 1991)  And the effect of completing the course on special education on their over all attitude to include students with disabilities in their classrooms (Hastings et al.1996)  In general it has been found that pre-service teachers are also willing to teach students with mild disabilities (Arvamidisand Norwich 2002; Wilczenski)  Pre-service teachers are more positive about teaching older students compared with younger students with disabilities (Hastings and Oakford 2003)  Pre-service teachers with higher educational qualifications (undergraduates )or postgraduates are more positive including students with disabilities in their classrooms and have less concernsw with them as teachers with lowe educational qualification

9. Research tends to suggest that there is a positive relationship between the amount of disability education and educators’ positive attitudes It is very important for pre service teachers that they complete their educational program that incorporates inclusive education so that they feel more comfortable interacting with students and becomes willing to include students with disability in their classrooms Teachers training programs with inclusion leads to a positive effect on pre-service teachers, attitude towards people with disabilities Implementation of an alternative approach “Content Fusion”

10.  Sample: The study Participants: n=603 (from 5 countries) 1. Au1, n= 153 (Australia) 2. Au2, n= 92 (Australia) 3. C1, n= 58 (Canada) 4. H1, n= 182 (Hong Kong) 5. S1, n= 93 (Singapore)  Procedure: The data was collected during the first and the last session of the courses. The duration of the course was : 10 weeks in Hongkong, Singapore and Australia 2 years in Canada for content infuse Program (Participation is fully voluntary and confidential)

11.  A four party survey instrument was used to collect data from study participants. The following are the scales that are used in the research: 1. Demographic Information 2. Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education Scale (ATIES) 3. The Interactions With Persons with a Disability (IPD)Scale 4. Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale (CIES)

12. A total of 603 pre-service teachers participated in the study. Of the total data set a large majority (82%) were female (n = 495), with the majority of that 85% being 29 years or younger (n = 514). For the bulk of these pre-service teachers their highest qualification was their school matriculation (66%, n = 388), with 25% holding an undergraduate degree (n =145). A small percentage (6%) had a diploma (n = 34) and further 4% held a postgraduate degree (n = 23). Participants were asked to indicate whether they had a family member or a close friend with a disability. Twenty eight per cent of the participants indicated having Such contact (n = 167).

13. Regarding previous training focusing on the education of students with disabilities the vast majority (90%) had not received any (n = 537), although a small number (10%, n = 57) indicated that they had received some previous training in this area. While a large number (58%, n = 348) of pre-service teachers had not previously taught a student with a disability, 42% of the cohort had done so (n = 250).

14.  Change in mean attitude scores (as measured on ATIES) for the five institutions. 1. aP < 0.001. 2. bP < 0.01  Change in mean sentiment scores (as measured on IDP) for the five institutions. 1. aP < 0.001.  Concerns about inclusive education:  Change in mean concern scores (as measured on CIES) for the five institutions. 1. aP < 0.001  A decrease in mean concern score is suggestive that participants have become less concerned about implementing inclusive education in their classrooms. It was found that participants concern mean scores decreased significantly for the AU1 (η2 = 0.15), C1 (η2 = 0.32), AU2 (η2 = 0.68) and S1 (η2 = 0.13) cohorts. It can be hypothesized that participants from all these institutions have become less concerned on most (if not all) items of the CIES.

15.  This paper focuses only on pre-service teacher attitudes, concerns and sentiments about inclusive education and therefore, it does not directly consider the potential benefits to be derived from including children with special needs in mainstream classes  Though the concerns of pre-service teachers about implementing inclusion are addressed as much as possible during their preparation programs  If that is a desired outcome of most of the pre-service teachers education program then it would be ideal to identify what kind of education would produce such teachers  It can be concluded that both fusion and single subject methods both models are effective  Pre-service teachers get also aware of the legislations of the countries while going through the course

16. Further studies can be done as examining the long term impact of different types of programs on teachers’ attitudes, sentiments, concerns about inclusive education. There is a need for studies to evaluate the impact of teachers education not only on attitudes, sentiments and concerns but on teacher’s efficacy also.

17.  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.10 80/09687590802469271 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.10 80/09687590802469271

18. Feel free to ask questions. ?