The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers'attitude toward integrated education for physically different children was related to their professional performing skills in elementary school, in a bid to seek ways for physically challenged chil...
The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers'attitude toward integrated education for physically different children was related to their professional performing skills in elementary school, in a bid to seek ways for physically challenged children to achieve socialization under the same condition as nondisabled children through community learning with them.
The findings of this study were as below:
First, as a result of measuring how elementary school teachers perceived integrated education for the disabled, their attitude was found to be different according to training experience in special education. But gender, teaching career, experience of teaching specail children or grade in charge made no difference to their attitude.
By subarea, their outlook on integrated education varied significantly with the experience of instructing special children, and their professional attitude toward the same also significantly differed according to training experience in special education.
Second, regarding the ability of the teachers to conduct integrated education for the disabled, that was different according to gender, teaching career, experience of teaching special children and training experience in special education.
Among subareas, their ability to perform integrated education varied with gender, experience of instructing special children and training experience in special education. Their skills to handle integrated education problems differed significantly with teaching career, experience of teaching special children and training experience in special education. And gender, teaching career, experience of teaching special children and training experience in special education produced significant differences to their professional ability to offer integrated education.
Third, as for correlation between their attitude and performing skills, gender and grade in charge were correlated to their attitude and ability. But teaching career, experience of teaching special children and training experience in special education had no correlational relationship with their attitude and performance.
The above-mantioned findings suggested that training in special education could incite teachers to have a more favorable attitude toward integrated education for physically different children, and that it's one of the key factors to enhance their performance and expertise in integrated education. Therefore, there should be more opportunities for elementary school teachers to get training in special education, and some institutional action is called for in this regard.