Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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A comparison of special, regular and support teachers’
beliefs about children’s learning difficulties

Dr Lisa Woolfson and Mrs Elizabeth Grant
Department of Psychology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland
lisa.woolfson@strath.ac.uk

Inclusive education policies and earlier integration policies have been promoted for over twenty years now. As teacher attitudes and expectations influence teacher behaviour (e.g. Brophy, 1985) and accordingly contribute to the success or failure of inclusion, there has been research interest in the area of teacher attitudes to inclusion and to the diversity of student needs to be addressed in their classrooms.

Scruggs and Mastropieri’s (1996) meta-analysis through the period 1958-1995 reported that while a majority of teachers agreed with inclusion as a principle, only 40% viewed it as realistic. Villa, Thousand, Meyers and Nevin (1996) found that teachers who had experienced inclusion were more committed to including children with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream classes and seemed more confident after developing new professional skills through the challenges of the inclusion programme. In contrast though Scruggs and Mastropieri’s meta-analysis found no correlation between teacher attitudes and year of study report, suggesting that even though opportunities to engage in inclusive practices might have increased over this period there had been little change in teacher views. Indeed Soodak, Podell and Lehman (1998) suggested that teachers became more hostile to inclusion with experience. Avrimidis and Norwich (2002) in their review of teacher attitudes from 1984–2000 found that teachers were less receptive to including students with learning difficulties than to the inclusion of other groups of students such as those with physical and sensory impairments. That mainstream teachers have not always responded positively (Tait and Purdie, 2000) towards the inclusion of students with learning difficulties, makes it important for us to examine teacher beliefs in relation to this particular educational group. Identifying teacher beliefs is an important step towards influencing actual practice (Silva and Morgado, 2004).

Attribution theory provides a useful framework for this. Attributions for the causes of behaviour are viewed as lying on three dimensions: locus of control (internal or external causes), stability over time and controllability (can the individual act to change the outcome?) (Weiner, 1985). Teachers have been shown to make causal attributions regarding the academic performance of their students (Clark, 1997; Conway, 1989; Soodak and Podell, 1994) and tend to place greater emphasis on within-learner variables such as ability, than external factors such as family or teacher factors, in making attributions regarding student success or failure and in predicting their future performance (Georgiou, Christou, Stravrinides and Panaoura, 2002; Medway, 1979; Tollefson and Chen, 1988). This suggests that teachers like other groups of adults are susceptible to the ‘fundamental attribution error’ where the contribution of internal, dispositional factors to performance outcomes is overestimated and the contribution of situational factors is underestimated (Jones, 1979). It should be noted however that there may be cultural differences in the values placed on different causal attributions (Clark and Artiles 2000; Ho, 2004).

Additionally, attributions for expected outcomes, such as failure for students for whom teachers have low expectations, were more often attributed to internal, stable factors than were unexpected outcomes (Burger, Cooper and Good, 1982). Similarly Medway (1979) found that teachers made ability attributions for 67% of students with learning difficulties. This suggests that teachers view these students’ learning difficulties as largely due to stable and uncontrollable factors and that neither the student nor the teacher can act to change or improve the situation, thus leading to continued low expectations of future performance.

Furthermore, such attributions have been shown to influence teacher-learner interactions in the classroom. Teachers feel pity towards such students and so are more likely to help and praise them (Georgiou et al 2002; Tollefson and Chen, 1988).   Clark (1997) too reported that teachers were less likely to be angry, gave greater rewards and indeed expected further failure with students with learning disabilities.   Jordan, Lindsay and Stanovich (1997) found that teachers who viewed the problem as being inherent in the individual engage in less teacher-student instructional interaction compared to teachers who attributed the learner’s problems to an interaction between learner and environment.

It is not clear from the existing research however whether all groups of teachers use the same attributions for students with learning difficulties. One might expect that special education teachers may be more likely to believe that they can effect change by adapting the curriculum or modifying their teaching methods to address the needs of individuals with learning difficulties. This suggests that special education teachers and mainstream teachers may use different attributions, with special education teachers more likely than the regular class teachers to view learner difficulties as external, unstable and controllable. And what about the attributions used by teachers whose remit is to support students with special needs in mainstream settings? Would these be similar to special education teachers with whom they may have shared special training courses, or would they be more similar to regular class mainstream teachers with whom they work closely?

The present study compared the attributions of three groups of teachers: special school teachers, learning support teachers working in mainstream schools and regular mainstream class teachers on locus, stability and controllability attributions.

Method

105 teachers took part in the study but six questionnaires had to be omitted because of missing data. The final sample consisted of 39 mainstream regular class teachers, 25 special school teachers and 35 mainstream learning support teachers all of whom worked with children of primary school age (5-11 years). All teachers were recruited from schools in West Central Scotland.

Clark’s (1997) vignettes about learners experiencing difficulties with their schoolwork were reworded for UK participants. These described learners experiencing difficulties and applying various combinations of ability and effort to the task. There were two vignettes for each condition, one where the student receives learning support suggesting that he has been identified as having learning difficulties, and the other where no additional support is required. This was made more explicit in the present study than in the Clark (op cit) study. As gender differences may be a confounding variable because teachers attribute the success of female students to effort more frequently than they assign effort attributions for success to male students (Carr and Kurtz, 1991), the vignettes referred only to male students. Teachers were asked to use a five point Likert scale to rate the child in each vignette on Weiner’s attributions of locus of causality, stability and controllability.

The present paper focuses on the findings on teacher group differences. Other findings from the study are presented elsewhere (Woolfson, Grant and Campbell, in preparation).  

Results and discussion

• Locus of causality– mean scores for locus of causality were higher for special school teachers than for the other teacher groups, although the differences were not statistically significant. This suggests that special education teachers viewed the cause of the learner’s difficulties as more external (teacher, family, curriculum) than internal (due to lack of ability or effort),.
• Stability - special education teachers in the sample viewed student’s learning difficulties to be more amenable to change than did the two groups of teachers who worked in mainstream settings. This view of the likelihood of change in academic performance was held by the special education teachers for learners of both low and high ability, whether learners received learning support or not, and regardless of how much effort the learner was applying to the work task. All findings here were statistically significant.
• Controllability – mean scores here were highest for the mainstream regular class teachers and lowest for the special school teachers, indicating that of the three teacher groups it was the mainstream teachers who viewed the learner as having the greatest degree of control over improving their academic performance. These findings were not however statistically significant.
• Teacher attributions for different learner groups - special school teachers tended to use similar attributions for students who received learning support and those who did not, while the other groups of teachers used different attributions for the two groups, viewing those who receive learning support as having less responsibility and control for improving their academic performance. Thus although the special school teachers attributed less control over their performance to learners than the other teachers as in 3. above, they held this view similarly whether the student received learning   support or whether his needs were met in class. This was different from the other two groups of teachers whose attributions of learner control differed for the two learner groups.

Discussion

The findings suggest that mainstream regular class and mainstream learning support teachers are similar to each other in their attributions of stability of performance and in the attributions they apply to the two learner groups (learning support or not requiring additional learning support) and different from the special education teachers. One possible explanation is that the two mainstream teacher groups work closely together in the same school settings within which a particular ethos may develop and where views of inclusion and addressing individual needs are shared.   The importance of ethos as a factor is supported by Stanovich and Jordan (1998) who found that the ‘subjective school norm’ was the strongest predictor of teacher behaviour. The above results further suggest that special education teachers have a more optimistic view of the possibilities for change in academic performance. Brook, Watemberg and Geva   (2000) also found special education teachers to have more positive views of teaching learners with special needs.

The finding that special education teachers viewed students similarly whether or not they were identified as receiving learning support, but that the two groups of mainstream teachers applied different attributions to these two groups is a challenging one. Inclusion rather than segregation was advocated because segregation labelled learners, separated them from their peers and exposed them to a narrower curriculum. As a result, many students with moderate learning difficulties now receive learning support within the mainstream school rather than attending special segregated provision. It seems that for these teachers working in an inclusive setting, the identification of learners as receiving learning support may nonetheless trigger a particular set of staff beliefs and expectations about students’ future performance. Perception of severity of the difficulty (Cook, 2001) could be a mediating variable here for the two groups of mainstream teachers who may associate access to learning support services with increased severity of difficulty and perhaps then reduce their expectations of learner performance?

Conclusions

A complex set of values and attitudes influences teacher behaviour. If included students are to experience education as positively as they might, as well as providing them with new pedagogical skills to help in the adaptation and delivery of curricula designed for individual needs, in-service training courses may need to address teacher beliefs about inclusion and about included learners.

References

Avramidis, E. and Norwich, B. (2002) Teachers’ attitudes towards integration/inclusion: a review of the literature. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 17(2), 129-147.

Brook, U., Watemberg, N., Diklah, G. (2000) Attitude and knowledge of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and learning disability among high school teachers.   Patient Education and Counselling, 40, 247-252.

Brophy, J. (1985) Teachers’ expectations, motives and goals for working with problem students. In C. Ames (Ed) Research on motivation in education. New York, NY: Academic Press.

Burger, J., Cooper, H. and Good, T. (1982) Teacher attributions of student performance: effects of outcome. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8(4), 685-690.

Carr, M., and Kurtz, B. (1991) Teachers’ perceptions of their students’ metacognition, attributions, and self-concept. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 61, 197-206

Clark, M. (1997) Teacher response to learning disability. A test of attributional principles.   Journal of Learning Disabilities, 30, 69-79

Clark, M., and Artiles, A. (2000) A cross-national study of teachers’ attributional patterns.   The Journal of Special Education, 34(2), 77-89

Conway, A. (1989) Teachers’ explanation for children with learning difficulties: An analysis of written reports.   Early Child Development and Care, 53, 53-61.

Cook, B. (2001) A comparison of teachers’ attitudes towards their included students with mild and severe disabilities. The Journal of Special Education, 34(4), 203-213.

Georgiou, S., Christou, C., Stravrinides P., and Panaoura, G. (2002) Teacher attributions of student failure and teacher behaviour toward the failing student. Psychology in the Schools, 39(5), 583-595

Ho, I. (2004) A comparison of Australian and Chinese teachers’ attributions for student problem behaviour.   Educational Psychology, 24(3), 375-391

Jones, E. (1979) The rocky road from acts to dispositions. American Psychologist, 34,107-117.

Jordan, A., Lindsay, L. and Stanovich, P. (1997) Classroom teachers’ instructional interactions with students who are exceptional, at risk and typically achieving. Remedial and Special Education, 18, 82-93.

Medway, F. (1979)   Causal attributions for school related problems: Teacher perceptions and teacher feedback.   Journal of Educational Psychology, 71, 809-818

Scruggs, T. and Mastropieri, M. (1996) Teacher perceptions of mainstreaming-inclusion, 1958-1995: a research synthesis. Exceptional Children, 63, 59-74.

Silva, J. and Morgado, J. (2004) Support teachers’ beliefs about the academic achievement of students with special educational needs. British Journal of Special Education, 31(4), 207-214.

Soodak, L., Podell, D. and Lehman, L. (1998) Teacher, student and school attributes as predictors of teachers’ responses to inclusion. Journal of Special Education, 31, 480-497.

Stanovich, P. and Jordan, A. (1998) Canadian teachers’ and principals’ beliefs about inclusive education as predictors of effective teaching in heterogeneous classrooms. Elementary School Journal, 98, 2221-238.

Tait, K. and Purdie, N. (2000) Attitudes towards disability: teacher education for inclusive environments in an Australian university. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 47(1), 25-38.

Tollefson, N., and Chen, J. (1988) Consequences of teacher attribution for student failure.   Teaching and Teacher Education, 4, 259-265

Weiner, B. (1985) An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92, 548-573.

Villa, R., Thousand, J., Meyers, H. and Nevin. A. (1996) Teacher and administrator perceptions of heterogeneous education. Exceptional Children, 63(1), 29-45.

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