Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion,perceived adequacy of support and classroom learning environment

Inclusive education has become a cornerstone of many government policies in an increasing number of countries, yet teachers have been found to hold mixed attitudes towards its implementation and usefulness. This article, using English terminology and thinking, aims to extend previous research on the effect of teacher attitudes towards inclusion in classroom learning environments, and to explore perceived adequacy of support, levels of stress, and willingness to include pupils with certain difficulties. Teachers (N = 95) completed questionnaires on attitudes to inclusion, classroom learning environment, support and stress. Pupils (N = 2,514) completed a questionnaire on classroom learning environment only. Teacher attitudes towards including special educational needs pupils in mainstream settings were found to have a significant impact on how they managed their classroom learning environments and how adequately they perceived available support. Teachers with more positive attitudes towards inclusion were reported by their pupils to have classroom environments with greater levels of satisfaction and cohesiveness and lower levels of friction, competitiveness and difficulty than for those with teachers who held less positive attitudes. Teacher attitudes towards inclusion increased with greater perceived adequacy of both internal and external support. Teachers were less willing to include pupils with behavioural difficulties than pupils who were able/gifted or had physical difficulties, irrespective of attitude to inclusion.     

Class‐size and Learning: the Tennessee experiment — what follows?

Abstract

The exceptionally large ‘Tennessee experiment’ — involving 7000 pupils — to elucidate the effects of class‐size on primary school pupils’ rate of learning has been widely interpreted as showing convincingly that classes of 15 pupils learn more rapidly, in an important sense, than classes of 24 pupils. The present re‐analysis in terms of value‐added in learning — the annual increase in SAT scores (rather than the absolute levels of those scores) — indicates that the benefits to average children resulting simply from a lowering of class‐size, while positive, are negligible in magnitude and not justifiable in relation to the additional economic resources required. The paper suggests that benefits are more likely to result from targeting additional resources to improved teaching styles, improved teaching materials and providing small classes for pupils with recognised learning difficulties; further research on class‐size needs to concentrate on the correct proportion of low‐attaining pupils that would benefit from attending small classes, the optimal size of such classes, and the fractions of the day which pupils with varying difficulties should attend small and normal‐sized classes.     

'The visual helps me understand the complicated things': pupil views of teaching and learning with interactive whiteboards

This study is one element of a government‐sponsored evaluation into the introduction of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) to Years 5 and 6 in English primary schools. This element of the research aimed to gather information regarding pupil views of IWBs and the impact these tools can have on teaching and learning. To extend current literature, the method targeted pupils’ views of how IWBs can impact on metacognition: thinking about learning. Using a template that has been developed by the Centre for Learning and Teaching at Newcastle University, pupils were encouraged to talk about learning in different contexts: this methodology and its rationale are described. The results show that overall comments from the pupils are positive, with the resulting themes encompassing how the IWB can facilitate and initiate learning and impact on preferred approaches to learning. The pupils describe how different elements of software and hardware can motivate, aid concentration, and keep their attention. On the negative side, pupils candidly describe their frustration when there are technical difficulties, their desire to use the board themselves and their perceptions of teacher and pupil effects. As IWBs are becoming more and more prevalent in schools, we discuss implications and make re‐commendations for teachers and manufacturers.     

Teachers' Interpretations of Effective Whole-class Interactive Teaching in Secondary Mathematics Classrooms

Prompted by ongoing concerns over standards of numeracy, eight mathematics teachers from four secondary schools in south Wales formed a teacher inquiry group to research the impact of introducing whole-class interactive teaching strategies into their own practice. Possible teaching approaches and activities were developed and agreed during group meetings. These were trialled by the teachers during their normal mathematics lessons. Lesson observations, interviews with teachers and discussions at the group meetings, however, indicated that the implementation of the approaches varied significantly across teachers. This paper analyses the variation in interpretations and teaching styles, and discusses their impact on the quality of the classroom discourse. The determining features discerned within the classroom dialogue included the extent to which pupils were encouraged to reflect on their mathematical knowledge, and the ways in which teachers were able to scaffold pupils' learning.     

“It came alive outside my head.” Developing literacies through comparison: the reading of classic text and moving image

This article reports on a term's work with students in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in which the adult classic text Silas Marner was studied in both written and film form ( Eliot, 1994 ; BBC/Fo, 1985 ). Through an extended consideration of the structures employed by different forms of narrative, students were invited to consider the knowledge and skills they brought to the development of their own response to different texts. Concurrently they were encouraged to consider the needs of their prospective pupils, as expert readers of moving image, and as novice readers of classic fiction. Crucial to the teaching and learning experience was the consideration of the different, expanding notions of literacy, including visual literacy, tele‐literacy and moving‐image literacy. A key consideration was the interrelationship between these, with narrative as the key link, and the exploration of how these literacies could be mutually supportive within the framework of ‘school’ literacy. The importance of paying explicit attention to the pedagogical practices that foster an engagement with and development of these different literacies was highlighted, as was the need to experience the reading of whole texts in order to foster the development of response.     

Evaluating the reliability and validity of a learning styles inventory: a classroom-based study

Background Psychology and educational theory has a long tradition of research into learning styles. However, the current educational policy and practice interest in learning styles in the UK has resulted in concepts and practices being adopted with little rigorous empirical evaluation.

Purpose This small-scale, experimental study aimed to test the reliability and validity of an available inventory designed to identify learning styles (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic).

Sample, design and methods Nineteen children, aged 7–10 years, with different styles as identified by the inventory, participated in a class experimental evaluation of their differential response to the teaching of word spelling using different teaching methods.

Results The study found that the visual and auditory scales, but not the kinaesthetic scale, were reliable (internally and re-test). The three groups of pupils with different learning styles—visual only, auditory only and mixed visual and auditory—showed different gains to teaching that matched these styles (visual and auditory teaching approaches). Retention of word spelling was higher one week after the teaching when the teaching matched the learning style.

Conclusions The findings in this exploratory study suggest the significance of learning style for classroom-based teaching.     

Coping with mismatched courses: students’ behaviour and performance in courses mismatched to their learning styles

Although learning styles are considered as an important factor in education, students often have to learn in courses that do not support their learning styles. A challenge for technology facilitated learning is therefore to assist and help students to cope with courses that do not match their learning styles by training and developing their less preferred skills. In this paper, the interactions between students’ learning styles, their behaviour, and their performance in an online course that is mismatched regarding their learning styles were analysed. The results show which learners need more help in mastering mismatched courses, help in getting a better understanding about how students with good performance record and poor performance record learn with respect to their learning styles, and provide information about how to identify learners who might have difficulties in learning based on their behaviour.     

Attitudes of Serbian and Slovenian student teachers towards causes of learning underachievement amongst Roma pupils

The task of initial teacher education is to prepare student teachers (ST) to accept responsibility for improving the education of all pupils, including Roma pupils. Thus, knowledge of ST's attitudes regarding such pupils at the onset of initial teacher education is a key for the creation of teacher education programmes that challenge implicit beliefs and biases. The main focus of this paper, therefore, is ST's perceptions concerning the causes of learning underachievement amongst Roma pupils and who is primarily responsible for these pupils' learning achievement. Research was conducted at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and the Teacher Training Faculty at the University of Belgrade in Serbia. The results suggest that ST do not consider themselves likely contributors to Roma pupils' learning achievement, which leads to an attitude of minimal responsibility. The majority of ST attribute Roma pupils' learning underachievement to their parents' disinterest in schooling, Roma pupils' lack of motivation, and their non-acceptance by peers. The implications of these findings for teacher education programmes are subsequently discussed.     

Measuring styles of learning and motivation

The theoretical basis, the development and the use of an inventory designed to measure styles of learning and motivation are described. On the basis of previous research, items within the inventory were located on 20 sub-scales. The ten motivation sub-scales were derived from a theory of school motivation which was based on extensive interview and inventory work carried out in Hungary with children, their parents and teachers. The ten scales describing styles of learning were derived from concepts describing learning approaches and styles which emerged from interviews and experimental research with students in British and Swedish higher education. Versions were prepared in both English and Hungarian and given to samples of 614 British and 579 Hungarian pupils aged between 13 and 17 years. A remarkably similar factor structure was obtained in each sample. An analysis of mean scores indicated distinctive differences both between boys and girls, and between British and Hungarian pupils. Cluster analysis was used to investigate the possible existence of styles which combined both approaches to learning and aspects of school motivation. The potentiality of the inventory for use in conjunction with study skills courses is discussed.     

Why ‘science for all’ is only an aspiration: staff views of science for learners with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Teacher and support staff perceptions of science learning, and specifically engagement with science outreach, by pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) were ascertained through questionnaires. The responses indicated that science is seen as serving distinctive learning purposes when undertaken by learners with SEND. Staff who accompanied SEND pupils to science outreach events expressed more positive views about separate outreach events for SEND pupils than other respondents, in line with current policy expectations of differentiated classroom practice. The desire for different provision for SEND learners also appeared to be associated with the staffs’ pastoral concerns about their pupils and their reluctance to let their pupils ‘fail’. The data suggests that, despite policy and legislative reform in the UK, curriculum science is still viewed primarily as a means to career progression for an able minority, rather than as an educational and cultural entitlement for all.     

The classical classroom: enhancing learning for pupils with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI)

This paper seeks to draw parallels between different approaches to classroom instruction and two contrasting musical styles and to examine how pupils with Acquired Brain Injuries (ABI) might fare in each. A polyphonic classroom is defined as one where an awareness of multiple layers of meaning are encouraged to enhance the learning opportunities, whereas in a classical classroom most of the layers expressly support a single dominant line. While this analogy cannot be stretched too far, it is suggested that, after an ABI, a pupil might progress their learning more easily in a classical-style classroom.     

Making Pupils Fit the Framework: research into the implementation of the National Curriculum in schools for pupils with moderate learning difficulties,focusing on Key Stage 4

The introduction of a National Curriculum in England and Wales caused a dilemma for many teachers who were responsible for pupils with learning difficulties. The issue of an entitlement curriculum for all pupils raised fundamental questions about the nature of special educational needs. This paper draws on the results of a questionnaire which was sent to senior teachers in schools for pupils with moderate learning difficulties in England and Wales. The results raise interesting questions about how schools structure the curriculum to enable equality of opportunity for all pupils whilst still managing to cater for the individual learning needs of pupils experiencing difficulties.     

Meaning-led learning for pupils with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties

This paper proposes that learning and teaching for pupils with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties could be enhanced by a closer focus on emotional factors and on the careful identification of what is meaningful for them. Phil Goss, senior lecturer in counselling and psychotherapy at the University of Central Lancashire draws on understandings about emotional development gleaned from child psychiatry and psychotherapy to inform our awareness of the deep-seated factors that may influence the complex needs of these pupils. He describes a research study in which he analysed findings from interviews with parents and carers about their perceptions of what is meaningful for their children. These outcomes are elaborated using findings from a pilot study on one pupil in which perceptions about what is meaningful for him were used to inform the ongoing planning of his learning. Phil Goss then uses the implications of this study to argue for fuller and more systematic involvement by parents and carers in planning for pupils with severe, and profound and multiple learning difficulties. Finally he suggests ways in which access to learning could be rendered more fruitful by adopting a meaning-led approach.     

‘I like it instead of maths’: how pupils with moderate learning difficulties in Scottish primary special schools intuitively solved mathematical word problems

This study by Lio Moscardini of the University of Strathclyde shows how a group of 24 children in three Scottish primary schools for pupils with moderate learning difficulties responded to word problems following their teachers' introduction to the principles of Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI). CGI is a professional development programme in mathematics instruction based on constructivist principles developed at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison. The study found that the sample group of pupils were able to develop their understanding of mathematical concepts through actively engaging in word problems without prior explicit instruction and with minimal teacher adjustments. The pupils' conceptual understandings demonstrated by their solution strategies within CGI activities were generally not consistent with classroom records of assessment. The results were encouraging in illustrating the capacity of the sample group of pupils with moderate learning difficulties to reveal their mathematical thinking and considers the importance of this insight for instructional decision making.     

Researching class in the classroom: addressing the social class attainment gap in Initial Teacher Education

The social class attainment gap in education is now attracting an increased level of concern. Despite the efforts of the British New Labour government to address the continuing underachievement of working class pupils in England, there has been little progress. This paper reports on one aspect of a wider research study carried out in an Initial Teacher Education department in which this persistent educational problem was explicitly addressed. In this study student teachers were prompted to explore their own understandings of social class and underachievement by acting as school‐based researchers. The data collected by the student teachers revealed both silence and resistance surrounding social class in educational contexts. They identified social class and underachievement as overlapping constructions that were inextricably linked to the perceptions and practices of the teacher. Importantly, in reflecting on their experiences of the research process the student teachers were able to identify significant implications for their own future professional practice. This paper concludes by emphasising that Initial Teacher Education (ITE) provides an important context in which to raise social class issues and to ensure that student teachers are effectively prepared to recognise and address the institutional barriers to learning faced by underachieving working class pupils.     

ICT in European schools: emerging issues from the ValNet project

ABSTRACT

Investigations of aspects of differentiation in primary and secondary schools showed that even teachers believed to be ‘good differentiators' have difficulties in allocating tasks to pupils which are appropriate to their attainment levels. Teachers identified a number of key needs to be met if they were to improve differentiation, in particular the need for detailed, manageable, accessible information on pupils' attainments. Among the needs of learners identified by pupils was a need for more information on their learning goals, problems and the means of their solution. A partnership model of assessment is described which has been developed by teachers to meet the needs of both teachers and pupils.     

Open-ended problem solving in school chemistry: A preliminary investigation

This paper uses a new set of 14 open-ended problems, designed for 14-17-year-old pupils studying chemistry, to attempt to gain some initial insights into the ways pupils solve open-ended chemistry problems. The emphasis is on how concepts and linkages between concepts influence success in solving such open-ended problems. Pupils worked in groups of three attempting to solve the problems and were encouraged to talk freely, to make notes of their progress, and to note their agreed answers. Evaluation sheets were also completed individually by the pupils after each problem. By studying the interactions between pupils by means of written materials, observation and audiotapes, it was possible to build up a picture of the way the pupils approached the problems and to explore some of the reasons for difficulties they experienced. In the light of the evidence, it is suggested that creating the links between 'islands' of knowledge is an important skill in solving open-ended problems and that this skill is not easily achieved by pupils at these ages. The notion that problem solving is a generic skill which can be taught is questioned.     

The role of special schools for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties: is segregation always best?

The education of young people with profound and multiple learning difficulties continues to raise challenges and controversies. In this article, Ben Simmons, an ESRC funded PhD student and research assistant, and Phil Bayliss, programme director for the masters degree in special education and disability, both based in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of Exeter, describe their research into provision for pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties in a special school in the south west of England. Their work, based in an interpretivist, qualitative approach, set out to illuminate issues relating to the inclusion of pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties. The findings presented here suggest that the school, in spite of its strong reputation, struggled significantly to provide appropriate learning experiences for pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties. Ben Simmons and Phil Bayliss discuss the need for improved staff development opportunities focused on enhancing current levels of knowledge and skills. They conclude by calling for a reappraisal of the established view that special schools necessarily provide the best learning environment for pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties.     

Teachers learning how to learn

School pupils learning how to learn (LHTL), aimed at helping them develop learning autonomy, requires teachers to develop new classroom practices. Hence teachers LHTL is equally important. The TLRP ‘Learning How to Learn in Classrooms, Schools and Networks’ project researched how practices were developed by teachers in 40 primary and secondary schools in England. Quantitative data were collected using teacher and pupil questionnaires, and qualitative data came from interviews with head teachers, school project co-ordinators and a sub-sample of classroom teachers. Some teachers were also observed and video-recorded. External constraints made it difficult for teachers to promote pupils' learning autonomy, unless they fundamentally changed the nature of classroom tasks and climate. A key factor was teachers' own engagement in collaborative classroom-focused inquiry. However, to be successful, this needed to be supported by school management and leadership. There were strong statistical relationships between school policy, teachers' professional learning and their capacity to promote learning autonomy in their pupils. Teacher learning through networking within their schools, and with other teachers in other schools, was also shown to be important.