Mainstreaming of mildly mentally handicapped children : obstacles as perceived by the regular classroom teacher

Corbett, George (1984) Mainstreaming of mildly mentally handicapped children : obstacles as perceived by the regular classroom teacher. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (12MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

The basic purposes of this study were (1) to develop a questionnaire that would assess the obstacles present in the provision of educational services to mildly mentally handicapped children in a regular classroom; (2) to investigate the obstacles to the provision of educational services to mildly mentally handicapped children in a regular classroom for a specific teacher population through the use of the questionnaire; (3) to determine if a relationship exists between these perceived obstacles and certain personal and situational variables. -- A questionnaire consisting of 26 items, covering ten (10) categories, was developed by the researcher and administered to a population of regular class teachers. Teachers were asked to rate their perception of each item as an obstacle to the delivery of educational services to mildly mentally handicapped students in a mainstreamed setting. -- Through an examination of response patterns, the degree to which each item was considered an obstacle was determined. Items were then ranked accordingly. -- Comparisons were made between teacher responses with reference to the personal and demographic data gathered, namely: gender, teaching certificate, training through special education courses, level of teaching assignment, teaching experience, and experience teaching exceptional children. -- To examine the relationship between each of the selected variables and perceived obstacles in educating mildly mentally handicapped children in a mainstreamed setting, a one-way analysis of variance was employed. -- The following conclusions were reached: (a) a significant number of teachers felt that there are obstacles to the education of mildly mentally handicapped children in a regular classroom; (b) the category most frequently perceived as a potential obstacle was "Learning Environment"; (c) the obstacles selected as most critical were "Present pupil-teacher ratio" and "Increase in the stress level"; (d) teacher training programs for regular class teachers are in need of revision if teachers are to be adequately prepared for mainstreaming; (e) in general, obstacles that were more closely related to actual teacher classroom performance were rated as more critical; (f) teachers perceived the attitudes of parents of regular children toward mainstreaming as a greater potential obstacle than the attitudes of others involved in the process; (g) the variable gender was significantly related to teacher perceptions in two obstacle categories; (h) the variable teaching level was significantly related to teacher perceptions in one obstacle category; (i) the variable teaching experience was shown to be significantly related to teacher perception in each of the ten (10) obstacle categories as measured by the questionnaire.

Actions (login required)

View Item