The purpose of this study was to examine how the personal back- ground variables of high school students, including experience with the disabled, religion, term of being enrolled in integrated class and academic performance, affected their reception o...
The purpose of this study was to examine how the personal back- ground variables of high school students, including experience with the disabled, religion, term of being enrolled in integrated class and academic performance, affected their reception of disabled students in terms of personal life, school life, social life, academic education and integrated education. It's ultimately meant to determine some of the right directions for integrated education to make it more successful.
The subjects in this study were 200 boy and girl students who attended D and M high schools located in Gimhae and Changwon respectively in south Gyeongsang province. 100 students from D high school had no experience to study with disabled students, and the others from M high school had such an experience.
The questionnaires used in this study were prepared based on literature of integrated education and earlier studies by Seo Dong- myeong(1999), Lee Mi-yeoung(2000), Choi Guk-hui(2003) and Lee Hye- suk(2003).
The collected data were analyzed with SPSS 10.0 program, and statistical data on mean and standard deviation were obtained to find out their attitude toward the disabled. Besides, t-test was conducted to see if there were any gaps between them.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, regarding the relationship of their experience of being enrolled in integrated class to their responds to five items about good receptive attitude and the other five items about bad receptive attitude, the high school students found it necessary for people in general to pay attention to the disabled, and they also felt the need for facilities and social welfare for them, regardless of their experience with integrated class. But they didn't favorably view volunteer work, interaction with disabled students and their participation in group-based performance assessment, which showed that their action didn't match their words. They should be educated to perceive the disabled in the right way and match their action and beliefs.
Second, they took a favorable attitude toward disabled students in personal life.
Those who had ever been in integrated class, had ever spent one year or more in integrated class, and got higher school grades were more receptive to disabled students in personal life. This finding implied that students should be educated at school to share their lives with disabled students without being prejudiced against them.
Third, they took a little positive attitude toward the disabled in school life. Those who had ever been in integrated class were more positive, and their religion, term of being in integrated class and academic achivement made little differences to that. They considered it advisable to help physically challenged students with their studies, but they didn't think integrated education had a good effect on non-disabled students. This finding indicated that current external integration between the disabled and non-disabled students didn't yet lead to appropriate emotional or social contacts. They should be helped to get in touch with disabled students in various ways.
Fourth, they took a very favorable attitude toward the disabled in terms of social life. Their personal background variables made no differences to their attitude, and this finding signified that they considered it necessary to care about physically different people in overall social life, and that the government should spare no efforts to help them.
Fifth, they had a little receptive attitude on disabled students in terms of academic education. Those who had a religion were better receptive to them than those who hadn't, and this finding had a lot of implications. They didn't approve disabled students to participate in group-based performance assessment, because they didn't think they perform well at school. Teachers should try to let them aware that not every disabled student had a weak will to learn nor were inactive in class.
Sixth, they took a little favorable attitude toward integrated education for the disabled, and those who had ever been in integrated class were more receptive. From this finding, it could be inferred that just an external contact was attempted without encouraging them to share energetic interaction with physically challenged students.
As integrated education becomes more prevailing, individual variance in integrated education setting should be viewed as a diversity, not as a cause of discrimination, and a perfect integration should be pursued by having every student learn to respect one another and lead a sharing life in the course of study and spending time together, no matter whether or not they are disabled.