Inclusive education in Germany - Empirical insights into future teachers’ attitudes and beliefs

Author(s):

Jennifer Lorenz(presenting / submitting)Tobias C. Stubbe(presenting)Tatjana Klekovkin

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

09. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement

Format:

Paper

Session Information

09 SES 04 C, Attitudes, Beliefs and Competencies of Future Teachers and Practicing Teachers

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

09:00-10:30

Room:

NM-F107

Chair:

Alli Klapp

Contribution

With the ratification of the UN-Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Germany in 2009, German schools are obliged to implement inclusive education. Formerly, the majority of students with disabilities was educated in so called “special needs schools” (Förderschule) which were organized according to types of disabilities, e.g. for hearing impaired or for socially or emotionally impaired students. All in all, the implementation of inclusive education in German schools is advancing rather slowly, with strong differences between the types of schools that exist in the stratified German school system. Led by primary schools, the implementation is also fairly advancing in secondary schools with lower and middle educational tracks (Haupt- and Realschule), as well as in comprehensive schools. Schools with academic tracks (Gymnasium) are far off in this development, as there are hardly any, promoting inclusive education in their classrooms. Considering that therefore, especially teachers in regular secondary schools have only little or no experience teaching students with and without disabilities in the same classroom, the new development towards inclusive education assigns them new tasks and challenges. According to several theoretical approaches, teachers’ attitudes are an integral prerequisite for their teaching. With reference to inclusion, attitudes are even seen as a professional competency (Baumert & Kunter, 2006). Studies point out that differences in the attitudes towards inclusive education are correlated with teaching degree, e.g. teachers with a degree for primary schools have a less favorable attitude towards inclusive education than teachers with a degree for special needs schools. Attitudes are therefore degree specific and it can be assumed that they are not developed on the job but rather beforehand, i.e. in the course of studies at university (Kuhl et al., 2013). Although several studies point to the importance of the course of studies for the formation of attitudes towards inclusive education, there are only few studies focusing on the group of teaching students. Kuhl and Walter (2008) report that regular contact with students with mental disabilities is positively related to the attitude towards inclusive education. Which other factors might further influence especially teaching students’ attitudes towards students with disabilities and their inclusion in the regular school system has so far rarely been subject to research.

Against the background of current German research, the main research question followed in this paper is which factors are related to teaching students’ attitudes towards inclusive education. We will, firstly, analyze if – in addition to regular contact itself - the quality of contact to persons with disabilities is related to the attitude towards inclusive education. Secondly, we will look into the relationship of the attitude towards inclusive education with teaching students’ self-efficacy beliefs. Thirdly, special focus will also be laid on schools with academic tracks (Gymnasium) and how the attitude towards this type of school might influence teaching students’ attitude towards inclusive education.

Method

In order to answer these research questions, data from 215 German teaching students in degree programs for schools with academic tracks (Gymnasium) will be analyzed. The data collection took place in winter semester 2014/2015 using paper and pencil questionnaires that were given out to teaching students at three German universities located in Goettingen, Brunswick and Hanover. It was part of a pre-study (“Gymnasium und Inklusion”, Lorenz, Stubbe, Krieg& Renftel, 2015) conducted by the Institute for Educational Science at the University of Goettingen. Teaching students’ attitudes towards inclusive education were measured with the “My Thinking About Inclusion”-Scale (MTAI) (Stoiber, Gettinger & Goetz, 1998), which has so far predominantly been used in its original US-American version and has lately been translated into German (Paulus 2013). The quality of the contact with persons with disabilities was also measured using items from an existing and frequently implemented scale, developed in Australia (Gething & Wheeler, 1992). In order to assess teaching students’ general self-efficacy beliefs, a scale developed by Schwarzer and Schmitz (1999), which is often used in German educational research, was included in the questionnaire. It was complemented by a scale that focuses on self-efficacy beliefs for inclusive education (NEPS, 2014). Additionally, the questionnaire contained a scale that was developed in the framework of the pre-study to represent teaching students’ attitudes towards schools with academic tracks (Gymnasium). In a first step the missing data was imputed using the R-package ‘mice’ (Van Buuren & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, 2011). Drawing upon studies for which the scales were originally developed, in a second step, we used confirmatory factor analysis to ensure their reliability for the following analyses. In a third step we analyzed structural equation models to examine whether the scales described above were statistically related to teaching students’ attitudes towards inclusive education. All multivariate analyses were conducted using AMOS (Arbuckle, 2015).

Expected Outcomes

The analyses show that the quality of contact to persons with disabilities is statistically related to teaching students’ attitudes towards inclusive education. The less uncomfortable students feel when interacting with persons with disabilities, the better is their attitude towards inclusive education. Similarly, high self-efficacy beliefs in general and with regard to inclusive education are positively related to the attitude towards inclusive education. For the attitude towards schools with academic tracks (Gymnasium), the analyses show that believing that this type of school is reserved for a selected group of high-performing students is related to a less favorable attitude towards inclusive education. The results of our analyses point out that the attitude towards inclusive education does not stand for itself but is related to a multitude of other attitudes. As these relationships already exist during the course of studies, it can be concluded that this phase in teachers’ careers deserves more attention in the successful implementation of inclusive education.

References

Arbuckle, J. L. (2015). Amos (Version 22) [Computer Program]. Chicago: SPSS. Baumert, J. & Kunter, M. (2006). Stichwort: Professionelle Kompetenz von Lehrkräften. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 9, 469–520. Gething, L. & Wheeler, B. (1992). The interaction with disabled persons scale: A new australianinstrument to measure attitudes towards people with disabilities. Australian Journal of Psychology, 44(2), 75-82. Kuhl, J., Moser, V., Schäfer, L. & Redlich, H. (2013). Zur empirischen Erfassung von Beliefs von Förderschullehrer/innen. Empirische Sonderpädagogik, 1, 3–24. Kuhl, J. & Walter, J. (2008). Die Einstellung von Studenten unterschiedlicher Studiengänge zu Menschen mit geistiger Behinderung. Heilpädagogische Forschung, 4, 206–219. Lorenz, J., Stubbe, T. C., Krieg, M. & Renftel, K. J. (2015). Dokumentation der Skalen einer Vorstudie zum Thema „Inklusion und Gymnasium“ (Working Paper No. 2 des Lehrstuhls Schulpädagogik / Empirische Schulforschung der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen). Manuscript in preparation. NEPS (2014). Startkohorte 4: Klasse 9 (SC4). SUF-Version 4.0.0. Data Manual [Supplement]: Codebook (de). Retrieved from: https://www.neps-data.de/Portals/0/NEPS/Datenzentrum/Forschungsdaten/SC4/4-0-0/SC4_4-0-0_Codebook_de.pdf (26.11.2014) Paulus, C. (2013). Einstellungen zu Inklusion: Die deutsche Fassung des MTAI. Retrieved from: http://scidok.sulb.uni-saarland.de/volltexte/2013/5554/ (20.11.2014). Schwarzer, R. & Schmitz, G. (1999). Dokumentation der Skala Lehrer-Selbstwirksamkeit (WirkLehr). Retrieved from: www.zpid.de/pub/tests/ pt_1003tWirkLehr.pdf (26.11.2014). Stoiber, K. C., Gettinger, M., & Goetz, D. (1998) Exploring factors influencing parents’ and early childhood practitioners’ beliefs about inclusion, Early Childhood Research Quarter-ly, 13, 107-124. Van Buuren, S, & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, K. (2011). mice: Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equationsin R. Journal of Statistical Software, 45(3), 1–67.

Author Information

Jennifer Lorenz (presenting / submitting)

Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Institut für Erziehungwissenschaft

Göttingen

Tobias C. Stubbe (presenting)

University of Göttingen

Institute for Educational Science

Göttingen

Tatjana Klekovkin

Universität Kassel, Germany

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