Impact of training on pre‐service teachers' attitudes and concerns about inclusive education and sentiments about persons with disabilities

Abstract

Inclusion of students with disabilities into regular schools is now one of the most significant issues facing the education community both nationally and internationally. In order to address this issue there is widespread acceptance that teacher training institutions must ensure that new teachers are trained to teach effectively in classrooms where there are students with a variety of learning needs. Utilizing a data set of 603 pre‐service teachers from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore this study reports the effects of training in inclusive education on pre‐service teacher attitudes towards inclusion, their sentiments about people with a disability and their concerns about inclusion. The results are discussed in relation to a range of factors that could have produced different gains in their attitudes, sentiments and concerns among cohorts from different countries.

Keywords:

• pre‐service training
• attitudes
• concerns
• sentiments
• inclusion

Acknowledgements

Ms Vi‐vian Lau and Dr Annemaree Carroll of the University of Queensland are thanked for providing the Singapore data and Dr Stella Chong and Dr Mei Lan Au from the Hong Kong Institute of Education for assistance in obtaining the Hong Kong data as part of this international cohort.