The purpose of this study is to look into the present status of regular classes including handicapped preschoolers, cooperation status of special education teachers and the roles of special education teachers related to expectations of regular educati...
The purpose of this study is to look into the present status of regular classes including handicapped preschoolers, cooperation status of special education teachers and the roles of special education teachers related to expectations of regular education teachers.
The concrete study objects based on the topics mentioned above are as follows.
1. Howe is the present status of regular classes including handicapped preschoolers?
2. How is the special education teachers' cooperation status recognized by regular education teachers?
3. What roles do the regular education teachers think should be carried out by the special education teachers?
The participants of this study included 147 teachers in charge of regular classes, into which handicapped preschoolers were incorporated, working for national and public kindergartens across the country where special classes are established. As for the research method, the questionnaire used in the dissertation of Yun-ju Jeong(2003) was referred to with some modification and supplement, and some part of the questionnaire was created by the researcher of this paper. The collected data was analyzed by using the SPSS 12.0 statistics program. The general things of teachers and the present stratus of regular classes were calculated on the basis of frequency and percentage, and the cooperation status of special education teachers and the roles related to expectations of regular teachers were analyzed by carrying out two independent samples t-test and obtaining the average, standard deviation. And some part of questions were analyzed based on the frequency and percentage.
The summary of the study results are as follows.
Firstly, according to the review of regular class status which handicapped preschoolers are incorporated into, in the most cases a special education teacher of a kindergarten was taking care of four handicapped preschoolers. And in most cases, a class was composed of 26 to 30 ordinary preschoolers and two handicapped preschoolers incorporated into the class. As for the incorporation types of handicapped preschoolers, the partial incorporation was more used than the total incorporation by 7.4%. As for the inclusive education consultation, they were holding consultations on occasional basis a little more. And as for the methods by which the regular education teachers obtained the information for inclusive education, in most case they relied on the counseling with special education teachers.
Secondly, according to the review of special education teachers' cooperation in the inclusive education of handicapped preschoolers, the most frequent cases were related to the cooperation in which handicapped preschoolers could participate in the events such as the field trip, market playing, sports meeting, and the cooperation for basic life habit education for handicapped preschoolers took the second place. And the cooperation for the class allocation for handicapped preschoolers took the third place, where the handicapped children were assigned to the same classes in consideration of age in most cases. And then, the cooperation for the correction of inappropriate behaviors, the cooperation to help the handicapped children participate in the ordinary children group were carried out in the order. On the contrary, as for the items of which the cooperations were not carried out favorably, the items, in which the special education teachers were asking the regular education teachers for inquiries or consultations about the individualized education planning, marked the lowest score, and the planning was mostly carried out by the special education teachers. And the low scored items were followed by the cooperation for the education of handicapped preschoolers who were incorporated into regular classes, the cooperation for the teaching-learning plans, the cooperation for the planning of teachers' roles and the cooperation for modification and supplement of learning materials, in the order. On the basis of investigation result according to the incorporation types, it was identified that there was no significance in terms of statistics.
Thirdly, according to the review of special education teachers' roles related to the expectations of regular education teachers based on the same items, the expectation for the information about handicapped preschoolers(diagnosis evaluation and development conditions, etc.) provided by special education teachers was the highest, scoring 3.77 points. And then, it is followed by the expectation the cooperation for basic life habit education for handicapped preschoolers, the cooperation for the class allocation for handicapped preschoolers, the cooperation in which handicapped preschoolers could participate in the events, the cooperation for the correction of inappropriate behaviors, in the order. On the contrary, as for the items of which the cooperations were lower than other items, the expectation, in which the special education teachers were asking the regular education teachers for inquiries or consultations about the individualized education planning, marked the lowest score, and it was followed by the expectation for the education of handicapped preschoolers who were incorporated into regular classes, the expectation for modification and supplement of educational contents, the expectation for the planning of teachers' roles and the expectation for modification and supplement of learning materials, getting lowered in the order. On the basis of investigation result according to the incorporation types, it was identified that there was no significance in terms of statistics.
The participants replied that the most difficult thing, which the regular education teachers went through during the inclusive education combining handicapped and ordinary preschoolers, was the correction of inappropriate behaviors of handicapped preschoolers, the most difficult thing in the cooperation with special education teachers was that the number of children in regular classes was too big, and then they also pointed out the lack of time due to too much work. The 47.6% of participants, which was the highest percentage, replied that the ratio of preschoolers to teachers shall be lowered in order to make cooperation with special education teachers, and lots of participants replied that it is required to expand training opportunities related to inclusive education. As for what the regular education teacher felt carrying out the inclusive education, the most participants replied that it is required that both special education and regular education teachers have to make efforts through training, conversation and others, in order to understand each other.