Profiles of teachers’ concerns about heterogeneity in classrooms

ABSTRACT

Although recent research has focused on teachers’ attitudes concerning inclusive education, studies on teachers’ concerns about heterogeneity in inclusive education and on the implementation of inclusive teaching into their educational practice are sparse. Based on the concerns-based adoption model, the present study investigated whether there are different teacher profiles with regard to their concerns and behaviour regarding heterogeneity in inclusive classrooms and to what extent these profiles differ with regard to subjective dimensions (attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy, background factors such as experience and emotions). Three profiles merging teachers’ Stages of Concern and Levels of Use (impact-concerned co-operators, unconcerned mechanical users, moderately concerned non-users) were identified in a sample of N = 113 teachers. Moreover, substantial differences between the three profiles regarding all of the subjective dimensions were detected. It is discussed how these results can be used for supporting teachers in dealing with heterogeneity in inclusive education.

KEYWORDS:

• Heterogeneity
• concerns-based adoption model
• theory of planned behaviour
• stages of concern
• levels of use

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Compliance with ethical standards

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee (The Ethics Committee of the Faculty for Empirical Human Sciences and Economical Sciences, Saarland University). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, L. Dörrenbächer-Ulrich, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This project (SaLUt – Grant number 01JA1606A) is part of the “Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung”, a joint initiative of the Federal Government and the Länder, which aims to improve the quality of teacher training. The programme is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The authors are responsible for the content of this publication.

Notes on contributors

Laura Dörrenbächer-Ulrich

Laura Dörrenbächer-Ulrich is a research assistant at Saarland University, Germany, where she investigates self-regulated learning in primary school and college students during academic transition phases. She has a master’s degree in psychology and holds a doctorate degree in educational psychology. Her field of interest comprises measurement of SRL (multimethod assessment, event measure, time series analyses), fostering of SRL (in class and online), individual differences in SRL, and the relation to constructs of interest (achievement, personality, etc.), as well as teacher training in the context of inclusive learning and heterogeneity in classrooms.

Lisa Stark

Lisa Stark works as a teacher for special tasks in the field of heterogeneity and inclusive education in the department of education at Saarland University, Germany. In her work, she develops, implements, and optimises learning opportunities in the context of heterogeneity and inclusive education. Further research interests comprise research on instructional design as well as on cognitive and affective learning processes.

Franziska Perels

Franziska Perels is an educational psychologist and has been professor for educational science at Saarland University since 2009. Her research interests include self-regulated learning in (pre-) school and university with a focus on intervention studies as well as the relation of SRL to correlated constructs (e.g., executive functions, cognitive load). She is also interested in research about teacher training in the context of inclusive learning and heterogeneity in classrooms.