Creating an Inclusive Classroom

AY 2017

CREATING AN INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM: COUNTRY CASE STUDIES ANALYSIS ON MAINSTREAM TEACHERS’ TEACHING-EFFICACY AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS IN JAPAN AND SINGAPORE

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

ADRIAN YAP YEI MIAN

Major in Policy Analysis of Comparative and 4014S316-1 International Education

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ASIA AND PACIFIC STUDIES

WASEDA UNIVERSITY

PROF. LIU-FARRER GRACIA

C.E. PROF. KURODA, KAZUO D.E. PROF. KATSUMA YASUSHI

PROF. TARUMI YUKO

KEYWORDS

TEACHING-EFFICACY, ATTITUDES, JAPAN, SINGAPORE, SPECIAL EDUCATION, INCLUSIVE EDUCATION, THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOUR, THEORY OF SELF-EFFICACY, MIXED-METHODS, DISABILITIES

ABSTRACT

“Creating an inclusive classroom” is no easy feat for education policy-makers and school educators to include students with special educational needs in the regular school settings. How we want to idealise our schools to become an inclusive educational institution depends on how the school leaders, educators and policy-makers put in their measures to realise inclusivity at schools. For the past few decades, inclusive education was often pushed to the forefront of educational agenda and it became a frequently talked-about topic at educational conferences. Past research indicated that teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes created significant impacts on their teaching competence and students’ achievements (Avramidis, Bayliss & Burden, 2000; Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1996; Soodak & Podell, 1994; Wilczenski, 1992).

This dissertation focusses on two country case studies in Japan and Singapore. The study employed a sequential mixed method design starting with the quantitative research followed by qualitative phase: Phase 1, a questionnaire-type research and Phase 2, a semi-structured interview research. This aims to identify several key research questions. What are the important child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables that affect their teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards their students and why these particular factors produce the outcomes? Further this also seeks to explore the relationship between teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes and to identify what kind of teaching-efficacy could best result in their positive attitudes towards students with special needs. Lastly, the study examines how different contexts e.g. political, social, economic and cultural contexts affect the outcomes regarding the implementation of inclusive education (Kozleski, et al., 2007). This conceptual framework is depicted in Figure i.

Figure i: Conceptual Framework

Country contexts

Political, Social, Culture, Teaching-efficacy Economic

Variables

Child-related, Teacher-related,

Environment-related Attitudes

Source: Created by author

In summary, this study investigates Japanese and Singaporean mainstream teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms based on these four main overarching questions:

1) Teaching-efficacy 1.1. What is the level of in-service teachers’ perceived teaching efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs in two countries? 1.2. Is there any significant relationship between teaching efficacy and child-related, teacher-related and environment-related factors? 1.3: How do selected factors from Question 1.2 explain their teaching efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs?

2) Attitudes 2.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in two countries? 2.2: Is there any significant relationship between teacher’s attitudes and child-related, teacher-related and environment-related factors? 2.3: How do selected factors from Question 2.2 explain their attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs?

3) Relationships between teaching-efficacy and attitudes 3.1: How does their teaching-efficacy correlate with their attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs? 3.2: Which type of teaching-efficacy is the best predicator of teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education?

4) Teachers’ challenges and strategies in inclusive education 4.1: What are the challenges they face including students with special needs in their inclusive classrooms? 4.2: How do they strategize to address their challenges in implementing inclusive class practices?

In Phase 1, a three-part questionnaire instrument was rolled out to 189 Japanese and 183 Singaporean mainstream teachers and this included three sections: demographic profiles of teachers, the Sentiments, Attitudes, Concerns regarding Inclusive Education (SACIE-R) scale to measure the level of attitudes and the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) scale that measured their teaching-efficacy of mainstream teachers. In the succeeding phase, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 38 Japanese and 15 Singaporean teachers who also participated in their earlier questionnaire researches. The objective of this narrative research was to follow up on the quantitative findings and to further explore their self-beliefs and perspectives about inclusion of students with special needs in their mainstream classrooms.

Through conducting the sequential mixed method study, the potential of this research to act as quantitative and qualitative lens to further understand teachers’ behaviours and concerns about their students has been empirically and narratively documented. The major findings are discussed below as follows: 1. Empirical findings suggested that Japanese teachers had slightly above-average teaching-efficacy and relatively neutral attitudes towards students with special needs. Japanese teachers’ prior experiences with students with special needs, presence of their disabled family members, geographical locations in Japan, knowledge about policy and legislation related to inclusive education and confidence level to teach students with special needs had significant influences on their teaching-efficacy and attitudes.

2. In Singapore, teachers possessed quite high sense of teaching-efficacy; however their attitudes were relatively neutral towards them. Gender, educational levels, knowledge about local policy and legislation and training had significant impact on their teaching-efficacy and attitudes.

3. Singaporean and Japanese in-service teachers’ teaching-efficacy were found to be positively correlated with their attitudes towards inclusive education which coincided with the previous studies.

4. In Japan, experienced teachers with prior experiences in teaching students with special needs were better advantaged due to their accumulation of mastery and vicarious experiences. Teachers with disabled family members had more positive attitudes towards students with special needs.

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5. In Singapore, male teachers were found to have higher teaching-efficacy than female due to the local contextual factors and their stronger physical traits to handle children with behavioural problems. Another finding showed that secondary school teachers and teachers who attended in-service special needs education trainings displayed more positive attitudes than primary school teachers and teachers who did not attend any in-service training.

6. Lastly, Japanese and Singaporean teachers shared different problems about including their students; their concerns cited ranged from concerns about academic performances, school bullying, lack of teacher training, large class size to lack of specialized manpower and support for their students.

7. They also identified different kind strategies to address these challenges to better include their students. For example, their strategies included modification of their teaching pedagogies to match their learning needs, better collaboration with teachers and parents, to name a few.

These frontier findings provide invaluable insights into Japanese and Singaporean mainstream teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy for inclusive class practices. Implications for policy and practice are also discussed; recommendations for better need to balance evidence-based training and practical trainings, affirmation of stronger collaboration between general and special needs teachers to better share resources and expertise and strong legal protection for students with special needs to safeguard their rights to inclusive education. These findings are salient as they could provide useful insights for the Ministry of Education in two countries, school leaders, and other stakeholders to better support the inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream schools at both on-the-ground and policy levels.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

KEYWORDS ...... I ABSTRACT ...... II TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... V LIST OF FIGURES ...... IX LIST OF ACROYMNS ...... X LIST OF TABLES ...... XI DEDICATION ...... XII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... XIII CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ...... 1

1.1 OVERVIEW OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION ...... 2 1.1.1 Background of inclusive education ...... 2 1.1.2 Inclusion movement ...... 3 1.1.3 The Normalisation Principle ...... 4 1.1.4 The Salamanca Statement ...... 8 1.1.5 World Education Forum and the Dakar Framework for Action ...... 9 1.1.6 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ...... 10 1.1.7 Contextual interpretation of inclusive education...... 13 1.2 TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES AND TEACHING-EFFICACY ...... 18 1.3 DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM AND PROBLEM STATEMENTS ...... 19 1.3.1 Case of Japan ...... 20 1.3.2 Case of Singapore ...... 21 1.3.3 Problem Statements ...... 21 1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ...... 22 1.5 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...... 23 1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ...... 23 1.7 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ...... 24 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 25

2.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 25 2.2 REFLECTION ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION ...... 26 2.2.1 What does the term “inclusion” really mean? ...... 26 2.2.2 Types of models of inclusion...... 28 2.2.3 Models of disability ...... 30 2.2.4 Philosophies towards placement of students with special needs ...... 34 2.3 TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES AND TEACHING-EFFICACY ...... 40 2.3.1 Teachers’ teaching efficacy for inclusive practices ...... 40 2.3.2 Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion ...... 43 2.3.3 Relationship between teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy ...... 45 2.3.4 Variables influencing teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy ...... 45 2.4 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ...... 53 2.4.1 Theory of Planned Behaviour ...... 53 2.4.2 Theory of Self-Efficacy ...... 57 2.4.3 Conceptual Framework ...... 60 2.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 61 SUMMARY ...... 63

CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...... 64

3.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 64 3.2 RESEARCH AIMS ...... 65 3.3 RESEARCH DESIGN ...... 65 3.3.1 Quantitative methodologies ...... 66 3.3.2 Qualitative methodologies ...... 67 3.3.3 Mixed methods research ...... 69 3.3.4 Rationales for mixed methods ...... 70 3.4 POSITION OF THE RESEARCHER ...... 71 35 RESEARCH DESIGN OF THE PRESENT STUDY ...... 72 3.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 73 3.7 RESEARCH POPULATION ...... 74 3.7.1 Identification of samples ...... 74 3.7.2 Sample selection ...... 76 3.8 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES ...... 77 3.8.1 Pilot Study ...... 77 3.8.2 Ethical considerations ...... 78 3.8.3 Research Instruments ...... 79 3.8.4 Questionnaires ...... 80 3.8.5 Semi-structured interviews ...... 84 3.8.6 Translation ...... 86 3.8.7 Trustworthiness of the study ...... 87 3.8.8 Actual Study ...... 88 3.9 DATA ANALYSIS ...... 91 3.9.1 Quantitative statistical analysis ...... 91 3.9.2 Data Coding ...... 91 3.9.3 Descriptive Analysis, Multiple Regression and Pearson Correlation ...... 93 3.9.4 Qualitative thematic analysis...... 95 3.10 RATIONALES FOR CONDUCTING COUNTRY CASE STUDIES...... 101 SUMMARY ...... 104 CHAPTER 4. CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN JAPAN ...... 105

4.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 105 4.2 HISTORY OF EDUCATION ...... 106 4.2.1 Prior to and during Meiji period ...... 106 4.2.2 Meiji restoration and Taisho period ...... 107 4.2.3 Showa period and years following the Second World War ...... 108 4.2.4 Post 1990s and 2000s ...... 109 4.3 MOVING TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN JAPAN ...... 110 4.3.1 From Special Education to Special Needs Education ...... 112 4.3.2 Major Changes to Plans in Year 2013 and 2014 ...... 115 4.3.3 Long march to disability rights in Japan ...... 118 4.4 TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION ...... 119 4.4.1 Statistics of schools, students with special needs enrolled and teachers ...... 119 4.4.2 Teachers training ...... 122 4.4.3 Teachers’ views about inclusion education ...... 122 SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS ...... 123 CHAPTER 5. CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN SINGAPORE ...... 124

5.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 124 5.2 GENERAL BACKGROUND OF EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE ...... 125

5.3 TRENDS OF EDUCATIONAL POLICIES ...... 126 5.3.1 Brief history of education for Special Needs Students ...... 127 5.3.2 Bumpy road to inclusive education ...... 129 5.3.2 Major changes to Education System after 2007 ...... 133 5.4 MOVING TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AFTER 2011 ...... 136 5.4.1 Increased efforts to improve quality of education ...... 137 5.4.2 Third Enabling Masterplan ...... 137 5.4.2 Enactment of compulsory education for students with special needs ...... 138 5.5 GENERAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS INCLUSION OF STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS .... 138 5.5.1 Poll findings on general attitudes towards students with special needs ..... 138 5.5.2 General teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education ...... 139 SUMMARY ...... 140 CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY ...... 141

6.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 141 6.2 JAPAN CASE STUDY ...... 141 6.2.1 Demographic data ...... 142 6.2.2 Preliminary Analysis ...... 146 6.2.3 Analysis of Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes ...... 154 6.3 SINGAPORE CASE STUDY ...... 175 6.3.1 Demographic data ...... 175 6.3.2 Preliminary Analysis ...... 179 6.3.3 Analysis of Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes ...... 185 SUMMARY ...... 200 CHAPTER 7. ANALYSIS OF QUALITATIVE STUDY ...... 203

7.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 203 7.2 OBJECTIVES OF THIS STUDY ...... 203 7.3 JAPAN CASE STUDY ...... 204 7.3.1 Brief summary of quantitative study ...... 204 7.3.2 Description of Japanese in-service participants...... 205 7.3.3 Analysis of Japanese teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy ...... 208 7.4 SINGAPORE CASE STUDY ...... 221 7.4.1 Brief summary of quantitative study ...... 221 7.4.2 Description of Singaporean in-service participants ...... 221 7.4.3 Analysis of Singaporean teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy ...... 223 SUMMARY ...... 238 CHAPTER 8. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ...... 241

8.1 REVISIT RESEARCH OBJECTIVE, RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY ...... 241 8.2 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ...... 243 8.2.1 Factors associated with teachers’ teaching-efficacy ...... 243 8.2.2 Factors associated with teachers’ attitudes ...... 246 8.2.3 Relationship between teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy: ...... 248 8.3 MAJOR DISCUSSION POINTS ...... 249 8.3.1 Key issue 1: Leadership vs teaching role ...... 249 8.3.2 Key issue 2: Gender issue ...... 251 8.3.3 Key issue 3: Educational levels ...... 252 8.3.4 Key issue 4: Challenges and strategies concerning inclusive education ...... 253 8.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE ...... 259 8.4.1 Need to balance training and experience ...... 260 8.4.2 Strengthen the partnership between general and special needs teachers ... 261 8.4.3 Legislation issue ...... 262

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8.5 LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE STUDY ...... 263 CONCLUDING REMARKS ...... 266 REFERENCES ...... 267 APPENDICES ...... 288

APPENDIX 1: INTERNATIONAL MANDATES ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION ...... 288 APPENDIX 2: ETHICAL CLEARANCE FROM IRB ...... 289 APPENDIX 3: EMAIL APPROVAL TO USE QUESTIONNAIRES ...... 291 APPENDIX 4: QUESTIONNAIRES FOR JAPANESE AND SINGAPOREAN TEACHERS ...... 292 APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR JAPANESE AND SINGAPOREAN TEACHERS ...... 303 APPENDIX 6: DESCRIPTION OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS ...... 305

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1-1: Timeline of major international mandates ...... 13 Figure 2-1: Cluster inclusion ...... 29 Figure 2-2: Reverse inclusion ...... 29 Figure 2-3: Social inclusion ...... 30 Figure 2-4: Charity model of disability...... 32 Figure 2-5: Medical model of disability ...... 32 Figure 2-6: Social model of disability...... 33 Figure 2-7: Various scenarios that depict different models of disability ...... 34 Figure 2-8: Graphical representation of segregation, integration and inclusion ...... 39 Figure 2-9: Sources of efficacy and the structural paths from sources of efficacy to behaviour...... 42 Figure 2-10: The concept of attitude and its three main components ...... 44 Figure 2-11: Theory of Reasoned Action ...... 54 Figure 2-12: Theory of Planned Behaviour ...... 56 Figure 2-13: Representation of difference between efficacy and outcome expectation ...... 58 Figure 2-14: Efficacy judgement ...... 60 Figure 3-1: Procedures for explanatory sequential mixed methods design...... 90 Figure 3-2: Screenshot of NVivo (Mac Version) ...... 101 Figure 4-1: Reforms to school system for students with special needs ...... 113 Figure 4-2: Statistics on students with special needs in Japan after the major reform ...... 114 Figure 4-3: Numbers of schools for students with special needs ...... 119 Figure 4-4: Population of students with special needs vs Year ...... 120 Figure 4-5: No of teachers teaching students with special needs vs Year ...... 121 Figure 5-1: Timeline for the establishment of social organisations in Singapore ...... 127 Figure 5-2: Educational pathways for students with special needs ...... 129 Figure 5-3: SPED curriculum framework ...... 134 Figure 6-1: Stacked bar chart on Japanese teachers’ responses to TEIP questionnaires ...... 147 Figure 6-2: Stacked bar chart on Japanese teachers’ responses to SACIE-R questionnaires ...... 148 Figure 6-3: Histogram of TEIP and SACIE-R values ...... 152 Figure 6-4: Normal Q-Q plot of TEIP and SACIE-R ...... 152 Figure 6-5: Boxplot of TEIP and SACIE-R scores ...... 153 Figure 6-6: Scatterplot of TEIP scores against SACIE-R scores ...... 167 Figure 6-7: Histogram of residuals ...... 170 Figure 6-8: Normal P-P plot of regression of residuals...... 170 Figure 6-9: Scatterplot of the predicted values versus the residuals ...... 171 Figure 6-10: Stacked bar chart on Singaporean teachers’ responses to TEIP questionnaires ...... 180 Figure 6-11: Stacked bar chart on Singaporean teachers’ responses to SACIE-R questionnaires .... 181 Figure 6-12: Histogram of TEIP and SACIE-R values ...... 183 Figure 6-13: Normal Q-Q plot of TEIP and SACIE-R ...... 184 Figure 6-14: Boxplot of TEIP and SACIE-R scores ...... 184 Figure 6-15: Scatterplot of TEIP scores against SACIE-R scores ...... 194 Figure 6-16: Histogram of residuals ...... 196 Figure 6-17: Normal P-P plot of regression of residuals...... 196 Figure 6-18: Scatterplot of the predicted values versus the residuals ...... 197

LIST OF ACROYMNS

CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child CRPD Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities EFA Education for All HRBA Human Rights-Based Approach ICF International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health IE Inclusive Education IEP Individualised Education Program IRB Institutional Review Board LRE Least Restrictive Environment MDG Millennium Development Goal MEXT Ministry of Education, Culture Sports, Science & Technology (Japan) MOE Ministry of Education (Singapore) OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development QDA Qualitative Data Analysis SACIE-R Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised SCT Social Cognitive Theory SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Science TEIP Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practice TPB Theory of Planned Behaviour TRA Theory of Reasoned Action UN United Nations UNESCO United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

LIST OF TABLES Table 3-1: Overview of Research Methodology for two country case study analysis ...... 75 Table 3-2: Breakdown of items based on different subscale sections in TEIP ...... 82 Table 3-3: Breakdown of items based on different subscale sections in SACIE-R ...... 84 Table 3-4: An example of the code book in SPSS ...... 92 Table 3-5: Rule of thumb to interpret the value of r ...... 94 Table 3-6: Process of content analysis...... 97 Table 4-1: Enrolment of students with special needs ...... 121 Table 6-1: Demographic profiles of Japanese in-service teachers ...... 144 Table 6-2: Cronbach’s alpha results for TEIP scale ...... 149 Table 6-3: Revised Cronbach’s alpha results for SACIE-R scale...... 150 Table 6-4: Descriptive Statistics for skewness and kurtosis ...... 150 Table 6-5: Tests of Normality for TEIP and SACIE-R ...... 151 Table 6-6: Means and standard deviations of Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy ...... 154 Table 6-7: Means and Standard Deviations: Experience in teaching students with special needs ...... 156 Table 6-8: Descriptive Statistics of overall TEIP score by level of knowledge ...... 156 Table 6-9: One-Way ANOVA of TEIP score by Level of knowledge ...... 157 Table 6-10: Post-hoc Analysis of TEIP score by Level of knowledge ...... 157 Table 6-11: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational level ...... 158 Table 6-12: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational level and Experience in teaching ...... 158 Table 6-13: Means and Standard Deviations: Geographical locations ...... 159 Table 6-14: Means and Standard Deviation: Geographical location and Experience in teaching ...... 159 Table 6-15: Means and standard deviations of Japanese teachers’ attitudes ...... 160 Table 6-16: Means and Standard Deviations: Having any family members with disabilities ...... 161 Table 6-17: Means and Standard Deviations: Geographical locations in Japan ...... 162 Table 6-18: Means and Standard Deviations: Gender and geographical locations ...... 162 Table 6-19: Descriptive Statistics of overall SACIE-R score by level of confidence ...... 163 Table 6-20: One-Way ANOVA of overall SACIE-R score by Level of confidence...... 163 Table 6-21: Post-hoc Analysis of overall SACIE-R score by Level of confidence ...... 164 Table 6-22: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational level ...... 164 Table 6-23: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational level and disabled family members ...... 165 Table 6-24: Pearson’s correlation coefficient between TEIP and SACIE_R means ...... 168 Table 6-25: Interpretation of Pearson’s correlation coefficient ...... 168 Table 6-26: Investigation for any presence of outliers...... 169 Table 6-27: Multiple Regression Model Summary ...... 171 Table 6-28: Results of the collinearity tests ...... 172 Table 6-29: Results of regression test ...... 173 Table 6-30: Determination of type of teaching-efficacy as predicator of teachers’ attitudes ...... 174 Table 6-31: Demographic profiles of Singaporean teachers ...... 177 Table 6-32: Cronbach’s alpha results for TEIP scale ...... 182 Table 6-33: Cronbach’s alpha results for SACIE-R scale ...... 182 Table 6-34: Descriptive Statistics for skewness and kurtosis ...... 182 Table 6-35: Tests of Normality for TEIP and SACIE-R ...... 183 Table 6-36: Means and standard deviations of Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy ...... 185 Table 6-37: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational Levels in Singapore ...... 186 Table 6-38: Means and Standard Deviations: Genders in Singapore ...... 186 Table 6-39: Descriptive Statistics of overall TEIP score by level of knowledge ...... 187 Table 6-40: One-Way ANOVA of overall TEIP score by Level of knowledge ...... 187 Table 6-41: Post-hoc Analysis of TEIP score by Level of knowledge ...... 188 Table 6-42: Means and standard deviations of Singaporean teachers’ attitudes ...... 189 Table 6-43: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational levels in Singapore...... 190 Table 6-44: Means and Standard Deviations: Received special needs education training ...... 191 Table 6-45: Descriptive Statistics of overall SACIE-R score by level of confidence ...... 191 Table 6-46: One-Way ANOVA of overall SACIE-R score by Level of confidence...... 192 Table 6-47: Post-hoc Analysis of overall SACIE-R score by Level of confidence ...... 192 Table 6-48: Pearson’s correlation coefficient between TEIP and SACIE_R means ...... 194 Table 6-49: Investigation for any presence of outliers...... 195 Table 6-50: Multiple Regression Model Summary ...... 197 Table 6-51: Results of the collinearity tests ...... 198 Table 6-52: Results of regression test ...... 199 Table 6-53: Determination of type of teaching-efficacy as predicator of teachers’ attitudes ...... 199 Table 7-1: Summary of Demographic Information of Japanese Interview Participants ...... 206 Table 7-2: Summary of Demographic Information of Singaporean Interview Participants ...... 222

DEDICATION

To my parents

To my sister and brother

To my good friends

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Completion of PhD dissertation would not be brought to fruition without the support from many people who were involved throughout the duration of my research project. First, I would like to convey my heartfelt gratitude to my Principal supervisor, Prof. Kuroda and my deputy supervisor,

Prof. Liu-Farrer for their kind patience, encouragement, guidance and invaluable advice throughout my three-year PhD programme. It was truly a rewarding and memorable research experience to be given an opportunity to work with you.

I would like to extend my gratitude to other PhD research committee, Prof. Katsuma and Prof.

Tarumi for offering their wisdom and advice for my project. Also, I would like to thank Prof. Furuta from University of Kumamoto for her strong support for my research field trip to Yamaga city and it was my privilege to work with her. Thanks to her, I managed to get many useful contacts from schools in Yamaga city. I am truly fortunate to have met all these Professors who have been so encouraging, supportive and wonderful to me in my research. Many thanks for their supports and kind thoughts.

I would also like to thank MEXT, Japan, Yamaga Educational Board, Suginami Education

Board, Ministry of Education, Singapore for their opportunities to allow me pursue research at

Japanese and Singapore schools and many other Japanese and Singapore school principals and teachers who were also very supportive of my work.

My special gratitude to my friends from Japan, USA and Singapore including GSAPS seniors who cheered me on my long and arduous journey and most importantly, my dear family members who are always there for me in times of difficulty and need. Their unwavering supports have constantly inspired me to complete my thesis, despite facing various obstacles and I managed to soldier on with their loves, blessings, prayers and faiths.

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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

“I used to teach my former secondary school student, Yip Pin Xiu, who had her progressive muscular dystrophy. Yet, it did not stop her from becoming a first Singaporean Paralympic two-time Olympic gold medallist in her 2016 Rio Summer Paralympics in the history of Singapore. When she was in my secondary school, she actively participated in outdoor programmes and she set a very good example for her classmates and even teachers. She had a very resilient personality that drew many people to her and many teachers including myself had learnt so much from her. If we developed our positive attitudes and right set of mentality towards students with special needs, we could see many children with special needs who can blossom in their youths and excel in many areas like her”. Interview with the Principal of a primary school.

This candid dialogue with the principal reveals an interesting insight of how school teachers internalize their multifaceted roles to bring values to many students’ lives, shaping the ways they grow beyond the subjects they teach and expanding their knowledge repository within and beyond classroom walls. Simply put, teachers are founts of experience, providing oasis of knowledge, experiences and life lessons for their young children; they have already walked the similar paths where their students are going, undergone what they experienced in their schools and understood how they experienced full repertoire of emotions at schools through school activities.

This story brought home a message that the success of including disabled students was the result of the teachers’ positive attitudes and beliefs in their teaching capabilities.

Education is a cornerstone for every child, regardless of differences, to be empowered with his or her indispensable knowledge and essential skills so that he/she can be a self-supporting and contributing member of the society. In particular, inclusive education concerns with the removal of all barriers, including the intangible ones, to one’s learning and to insure the learners with their rudimentary rights to quality education so as to achieve their self-sustainable living, responsible citizenry, gainful employment and better quality of life. However, there remains to be seen how well and in what ways the inclusion of disabled children in the regular classrooms benefit them

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

1.1 OVERVIEW OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

This chapter introduces the readers to the background of inclusive education and various contextual interpretations of inclusive education before discussing on research objectives, research questions, research significance and structure of the dissertation.

1.1.1 Background of inclusive education

In the early 20th century, an emerging strong voice called for greater inclusivity of students with special needs and embrace of diversity within the regular classrooms. The core responsibility lay squarely on the policy makers and school administrators to implement right education pathways for persons with disabilities to “reflect the values and objectives of the society in which they are embedded, including, inter alia, preparation for [disabled] students’ future lives personally, socially and vocationally” (Hyde, Ohna & Hjulstadt, 2005; pg. 416). Since the implementation of the

Salamanca Framework, more educational institutions recognised the fundamental rights of the disabled students to quality education in the regular classrooms. At the same time, the parents were becoming more vocal and assertive in demanding their child with disability be given fair treatment to education with the non-disabled classmates or siblings. As expected, there were drastic ongoing reforms to existing education legislations and policies that demanded children with special needs to be placed in the regular educational settings (Foreman, 2007). Many schools in developed countries e.g. Scandinavian countries, U.S., Australia demanded that both parents and their students be accorded with their rights to their choice of preferred educational placements (Elkins, van

Kraayenoord & Jobling, 2003; Head & Pirrie, 2007). Notwithstanding the worldwide proliferation of inclusive education, not all countries readily acknowledged the importance of inclusive education.

Rather they preferred to play on the safe side by resorting to segregation, integration or partial inclusion of students with special needs (Forlin, 1995; Poon-McBrayer, 2004)

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

1.1.2 Inclusion movement

The key question asks: how was the concept of inclusive education evolved? Did the inclusive education movement begin because of the Salamanca Statement or Dakar Framework at

Jomtien Conference? Who was responsible behind this phenomenal movement? Before we answer these questions, it is essential to understand the historical background about the evolution of education landscape for the students with special needs.

In the 15th century, many children with special needs were excluded from the mainstream schools in many countries (Weintraaub & Abeson, 1976) and separately placed at the special schools where many special education provisions were established with some supports from the communities and religious bodies (Martin, Martin & Terman, 1996). At that point of time, students with special needs were taught vocational skills at the special schools and the curriculum was different from the mainstream schools. Winzer (1993) wrote that during the early twentieth century, in most countries many mainstream schools rejected the application or refused the enrolment of students with special needs. Thus it forced them to be segregated from the regular children and placed them at the special schools with differentiated supports for their learning needs (Rebell & Hughes, 1996).This segregation placement was based on the principle of exclusivity (Truscott, et al., 2005) or charity model of disability1 (O’Day & Kileen, 2002) that reduced the interaction opportunities with their classmates and this affected their future educational and employment opportunities. This institutional approach to learning and teaching largely focused on expecting the children with special needs to adapt to the rigid educational structure instead of altering their school environments.

At the end of Second World War, the Civil Rights Movements in the 1950s and 1960s began to end the segregation of students with special needs. During the period, the segregation of children with special needs from the mainstream schools began to be questioned and growing opposition against segregation/institution of students with special needs at special schools began to emerge.

Eventually the Supreme Court prohibited the segregated placement at all US public schools (Frey &

1 Charity model of disability is part of the three main models of disability and more details are discussed in the Chapter 2 – Literature Review.

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

Wilson, 2009) and it, thus, encouraged greater vocal protests from parents of children with special needs and human rights advocates to end the segregation of students with special needs from their regular classmates (Blanchett, Mumford & Beachum, 2005). By 1948, the worldwide education policies slowly reoriented away from segregation educational placement as the United Nation’s

Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established to recognise that all children including those with disabilities be protected with their basic rights to education (Wolfensberger, 1972). The Article

26 proclaimed that everyone, including students with special needs, had their rights to education, free and compulsory education at the primary schools, vocational institutions, professional learning centres and higher education institutions for all regardless of any differences.

1.1.3 The Normalisation Principle

The Normalisation Principle advocated the equality in education for students with special needs and optimised the use of regular school system with the minimum resort to segregated facilities. It was originated in Scandinavian countries, starting with Sweden during the period of

1960s and 1970s. It brought about a huge step to recognise the rights enjoyed by people with disabilities to lead their ‘normal lives’ including attending a local school and being gainfully employed (Nirje, 1969). The idea behind this Normalisation Principle was popularised by Niels Eric

Mikkelsen who was responsible behind the deinstitutionalisation movement in Scandinavian countries. He was considered to be the “father of Normalisation Principle” (Kumar, 2012; pg. 669) and continued to push for the rights of students with special needs to be “normalized” as their peers.

This Normalisation Principle was then introduced to other countries, starting from Denmark by

Mikkelsen (Kumar, 2012; Wolfensberger, 1972) and was eventually spread to United States including Canada through the National Institute for Mental Retardation. The integration of children with special needs at schools and community levels had improved drastically after the inception of the Normalisation Principle. One of the staunch advocates of Normalisation Principle, Dunn (1968) challenged the segregation of students with special needs and called for abolishment of segregation education. All these major changes, including the Civil Rights Movements of 1950s and 1960s, resulted in major education reforms to educational placement of students with special needs

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY throughout the Europe, North America, Australia and other parts of the world (Ericsson, 1985).

In United States, 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) which also incorporated the Normalisation Principle, stipulated that every children with special needs be provided with a free and most appropriate education in the least restrictive way in the regular classrooms (Owens & Konkol, 2004; Pirrie, 2008; Sliva & Spitzer, 2004). New federal laws such as

Rehabilitation Act were enacted to outlaw any discriminatory practices in public service. The

EAHCA was later renamed in 2004 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act

(IDEIA) and it mandated that the programme be carefully designed to properly address the unique needs of special needs (IDEIA, 2004). Based on the revised IEDIA, children with special needs were provided with their Individualised Education Programmes (IEP) and involved in the general education curriculum. Also, the special education teachers should be adequately trained to cope with the diverse needs of students with special needs. The discriminatory reference to ‘handicapped’ or any word that concerned disability categorisation, was removed to eliminate the social stigma attached to disability and this Act focused on the eradication of obstacles and introduction of the concept of Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) (Martin et al., 1996). The LRE concept demanded for greater accessibility to wide range of services to facilitate children with special needs in their study and interactions with their regular peers in the mainstream schools. It also identified various strategies to better address class constraints associated with substandard teaching expertise, large class size and lack of resources (Martin et al., 1996). Within the framework of LRE, the child with special needs was able to learn and develop fully with their peers while learning the standard curriculum with necessary adjustments made.

Similar legislations to prohibit the discriminatory practice to segregate students with special needs from the regular classmates were also enacted in Europe and Australia. It included the establishment of legislation reforms to education e.g. 1981 Education Act in England (Armstrong,

2005; Buss, 1985), 1975 Loi d’Orientation in France (Armstrong, 2003), and the 1986 Australian

Services Act (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000). Owing to the legislation enacted in these countries, the number of students with special needs enrolled at the segregated schools and the

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY number of special schools decreased and these Acts mandated that students with special needs be provided with their greater access to their educational services at their local mainstream schools

(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000). All these various initiatives adopted by different countries were largely based on the concept of Normalisation Principle which was believed to be related to the integrated education philosophy. Nirje (1969, pg. 186) wrote:

“With normal location and normal sizes facilities for the persons with mental retardation will give residents better opportunities for better integration”

By 1989, 177 countries came together to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) which supported the child’s basic rights to quality education (UNICEF, 2000). This was the first treaty developed with its specific target at the children and it was ratified by many countries. According to UNICEF (2000), the ratification of UN Convention on the Rights of Child paved a road to make the primary education systems worldwide part of the national education policy.

Unlike the previous treaties including the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CRC increased its focus on previously left-out minority groups including children with special needs.

Three selected Articles 3, 20 and 21 from CRC concerning the rights of children with special needs in the domain of education are discussed below (Calderbank, 2009; pg 10):

“Article 3: Leave no child behind. Each girl and boy is born free and equal in dignity and

rights; therefore all forms of discrimination affecting children must end.

Article 20: Discrimination gives rise to a self-perpetuating cycle of social and economic

exclusion and undermines children’s ability to develop to the fullest potential. We

will make every effort to eliminate discrimination against children whether rooted

in the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language,

religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property,

disability, birth or other status.

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Article 21: We will take all measures to ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human

rights and fundamental freedoms, including equal access to health, education, and

recreational services, by children with disabilities and children with special needs;

to ensure the recognition of their dignity; to promote their self-reliance; and to

facilitate their active participation in the community.”

Unfortunately, the concept of Normalisation Principle did not align well with the inclusion, as many scholars critiqued that the normalisation did not accurately acknowledge the actual existence of other individual differences in the society. Jenkinson (1997, pg. 12) pointed out normalisation failed to address the needs of persons with special needs which they could not enjoy

“the diversity of educational, vocational and other opportunities that are available to people in the adult world”. The key issue is what the term ‘normal’ actually refers to and how the educational programmes that are based on the normalisation principle could effectively meet their needs.

Jenkinson (1997, pg. 13) criticised that the regular classroom teachers could not genuinely understand “need to devise and implement curricula for students who appeared unable to learn from normal instruction in the regular class”.

In response to these apparent weaknesses and growing chasm between the students with special needs and their developing peers at school, the UNESCO hosted the first World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990. This primary objective was to provide educational opportunities to meet the fundamental learning needs in a more “flexible manner, responding to the needs, culture and circumstances of learner” (Calderbank, 2009; pg. 11). Since the inauguration of Education for All conference, two important events for persons with special needs were organised; the first one focused on the guidelines for the government and civil societies to encourage and provide equal opportunities for persons with special needs and the second one was to discuss the strategy of providing equal access to education for children with special needs in the mainstream education system. This created a strong impetus to push for education reforms to promote inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream school.

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

1.1.4 The Salamanca Statement

After the convening of Education for All at Jomtien conference in 1990, another major milestone saw the promulgation of UNESCO’s Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994). As clearly articulated, this statement promoted inclusive education as the most effective and powerful movement against the discrimination of students with special needs and demanded establishment of inclusive schools for all regardless of any difference (Daniels & Garner, 1999). Radical changes to existing education systems began to include students with different needs or other excluded groups, not only limited to the disability groups (UNESCO, 1994). Twenty-five international organisations and ninety-two countries had signed the UNESCO Salamanca Statement that required them to implement the inclusive school practices to facilitate better inclusion of students with special needs.

The Article 2 of the UNESCO Salamanca Statement states:

Regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an inclusive society and achieving education for all; moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system

(UNESCO, 1994; pg. IX).

Since its first promulgation of UNESCO Salamanca Statement, many countries developed their educational strategies to create more inclusive education systems (Ainscow, 2003). This signaled the significant move from medical model of disability to social model of disability (will be discussed in Chapter 2 – Literature Review) which considers inclusive education as an emblem of societal values and esteem for everyone (Dixon, 2005).

However, the problem emerging from these two treaties - Education for All (Jomtien) and

Salamanca Statements - highlighted that they heavily focused on primary education, neglecting the other aspects of education system. Also, the non-formal education was perceived to be of a separate entity which received lesser attention from the educational authorities. These treaties were found to be overwhelmed with too many unrealistic targets. There was no room for past reflections and analysis of their past implementation (Müller, 2015). To circumvent this problem, the organisers

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY convened the first international forum in Dakar from April 26 -28, 2000 to take stock of the progresses and results of EFA goals, involving more than 180 countries and to renew their commitment to EFA goals and targets.

1.1.5 World Education Forum and the Dakar Framework for Action

The World Education Forum and Dakar Framework for Action aimed to take the assessment of the past achievements and progresses of the Global EFA 2000 Assessment targets. Based on the

“biggest review on education in history” (Calderbank, 2009; pg. 13), the results were found to be mixed. There were many problematic issues plaguing the government’s implementation of inclusive education: dropout rates and non-completion of schooling remained high, low participatory rates among the girls and lack of educational opportunities for the underprivileged, the poor, the excluded and the disabled. Participating countries had to reassess their situations and identified major barriers to their implementation of inclusive education. Then they compiled all the problems and suggested solutions in the series of thematic studies, national reports, regional synthesis reports and other documents. The Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All had already outlined 6 main goals concerning education (Calderbank, 2009; pg. 145):

Goal 1: Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education,

especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children;

Goal 2: Ensuring that by 2015, all children, particularly girls, children in difficult

circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and

complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality;

Goal 3: Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through

equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programmes;

Goal 4: Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially

for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults.

Goal 5: Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2015, and

achieving gender equality in education in 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full

and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality;

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

Goal 6: Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that

recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in

literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

However, there were other children and youths with special needs who remained to be excluded from education in developing countries and from quality education in developed countries

(Inclusion International, 2010). The plausible reason for these groups of students with special needs explained these different agendas in place did not directly address the appropriate placement of these students; one of them focused on investment and monitoring of educational systems, ignoring the actual needs of students while the other agenda solely focused on the children and youth with disabilities, neglecting the other aspects of system, for example teacher trainings on students with special needs. It did not effectively address other equally urgent issues on lack of teacher training, lack of accountability and monitoring mechanisms, lack of support mechanism for families with their disabled children, lack of transparency in political leadership and other associated issues.

Consequently, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was initiated to narrow the gap between the philosophy of inclusive education and actual reality surrounding children and persons with special needs

1.1.6 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was the latest treaty that was adopted on December 13, 2006 at the United Nations Headquarter in New York. Thereafter this legally binding international instrument was opened to the interested countries for their signatures on

March 30, 2007 and it received overwhelmingly eighty-two signatories to the CRPD on the same day.

However Japan and Singapore were not among the first batch of signatories to the CRPD.

Nevertheless, this proved to be the record breaking number of signatories since the first day of opening of signature of CRPD to the world and it was the most comprehensive human rights based-approach treaty to be officially enacted on May 3rd, 2008 (OHCHR, 2016).

The philosophy behind the CRPD involved the paradigm shift from the medical model of viewing persons with disabilities as “objects” of pity, charity, social protection and welfare receiver

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY towards the social model of respecting them as “subjects” with their self-respect, rights, self-capability to make their own decisions about their lives and ability to make contribution as active members of society (Rehman, 2010). It discussed how different categories of rights could be applied to persons with special needs and identified relevant areas that necessary adaptions must be provided for their citizens with special needs to effectively exercise and enjoy their rights. The committee identified some overlooked zones where their rights could be infringed and suggested how their safeguarding of their rights should be effectively preserved (OHCHR, 2016). The Article

24 of the CRPD, pertaining to the education for students with special needs, discusses these most relevant clauses (OHCHR, 2016) below:

1) States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to education. With a view to

realizing this right without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity, States

Parties shall ensure an inclusive education system at all levels and lifelong learning

directed to:

(a) The full development of human potential and sense of dignity and self-worth, and

the strengthening of respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and human

diversity;

(b) The development by persons with disabilities of their personality, talents and

creativity, as well as their mental and physical abilities, to their fullest potential;

2) In realizing this right, States Parties shall ensure that:

(a) Persons with disabilities are not excluded from the general education system on the

basis of disability, and that children with disabilities are not excluded from free and

compulsory primary education, or from secondary education, on the basis of

disability;

(b) Persons with disabilities can access an inclusive, quality and free primary and

secondary education on an equal basis with others in the communities;

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

(d) Persons with disabilities receive the support required, within the general education

system, to facilitate their effective education; (e) Effective individualized support

measures are provided in environments that maximize academic and social

development, consistent with the goal of full inclusion.

3) States Parties shall enable persons with disabilities to learn life and social development

skills to facilitate their full and equal participation in education and as members of the

community. To this end, States Parties shall take appropriate measures, including:

(a) Facilitating the learning of Braille, alternative script, augmentative and alternative

modes, means and formats of communication and orientation and mobility skills,

and facilitating peer support and mentoring;

(b) Facilitating the learning of sign language and the promotion of the linguistic identity

of the deaf community;

deaf or deaf-blind, is delivered in the most appropriate languages and modes and

means of communication for the individual, and in environments which maximize

academic and social development.

4) In order to help ensure the realization of this right, States Parties shall take appropriate

measures to employ teachers, including teachers with disabilities, who are qualified in

sign language and/or Braille, and to train professionals and staff who work at all levels of

education. Such training shall incorporate disability awareness and the use of appropriate

augmentative and alternative modes, means and formats of communication, educational

techniques and materials to support persons with disabilities.

5) States Parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities are able to access general tertiary

education, vocational training, adult education and lifelong learning without

discrimination and on an equal basis with others. To this end, States Parties shall ensure

that reasonable accommodation is provided to persons with disabilities.

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

The CRPD treaty further managed to combat the discriminatory attitudes towards the disabled community and to inculcate the true form of humanity in all society members. Eventually Japan and

Singapore signed and ratified the CRPD (later than 2006) and they positioned themselves in a positive light that they were able to assure their disabled citizens’ human rights to education healthcare, employment and others were safeguarded. Nonetheless, despite the efforts to promote inclusive education, according to the Save the children (2009) report, at least 75 million primary school children had still not attended any formal schoolings or were not fully included in the regular schools and this remains a thorny issue of how inclusive education could be effectively executed to include students with special needs in this century.

In summary, all these key international instruments concerning the inclusive education have clearly demonstrated how the world view towards the inclusion of students with special needs have transformed across the epochs of time. The summary of inclusion movement is illustrated in the

Figure 1-1 below and further details on other international mandates on inclusive education can be found in Appendix 1.

Figure 1-1: Timeline of major international mandates

Source: Created by author

1.1.7 Contextual interpretation of inclusive education

Originally, the inclusive practice originated in the West around twenty years ago and it began to proliferate throughout the world in many different forms. The pace of development of inclusive education in in many developed countries especially “in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY the United States of America generally [is] generally considered to be the most mature” (Cheung &

Hui, 2007; pg. 65). The other studies also supported this claim that the philosophy adopted towards the inclusive education differed between the Asian and the Western countries due to the “significant cultural, demographic, economic and even religious differences…between the two regions” (Forlin

& Lian, 2008; pg. 234). As earlier indicated that there is no universally accepted definition of inclusion, but it is rather seen as a philosophical approach towards education – a strong need for

“equitable educational opportunities for all children, irrespective of disability” (Cheung and Hui,

2007; pg. 65). Kirk et al, (2006) explained that inclusion education brought about significant changes that ranged from higher expectations for academic achievements to economic rationalism which was loosely defined as a form of economic reasoning where it perceived itself as a science that was “devoid, largely, of social goals” (Wauters & Knoors, 2008; pg. 55). In contrary to Western large-scale development, the inclusive education still remains very much in the infancy stage of development due to diverse cultural, social and economic factors in Asian countries.

Western interpretation of inclusive education

Western countries were often perceived to hold their liberal views towards inclusive education as they believed in the value of equity and social justice for the students who could not benefit fully from the segregated or integrated education. According to Rawal (2002; pg 3), the strong reason for the Westerners’ change in attitudes towards educational options for the students with special needs explained:

“The urgency of action regarding the achievement of the basic education is based on the view that, as we enter the 21st Century, the denial of anyone’s right to education is fundamentally unacceptable. This urgency has become imperative due to the impact of globalization and communications at the interface between society, economy and technology.”

This line of thinking reflects that all children regardless of their disabilities should be given their equal opportunities to learn together with their peers in the same schools/classrooms as Cheung and Hui (2007: pg. 68) mentioned, “demanding that mainstream schools and associated systems must meet the needs of a diverse range of students and provide differentiated and appropriate

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY education for them”. Uditsky (1993; pg. 88) further clarified, “a set of principles which ensures that the student with a disability is viewed as a valued and needed member of the school community in every respect”. However, many inclusive education scholars including Udistsky (1993), Cheung and

Hui (2007), and Farrell and Ainscow (2002) doubted the possibility of implementation of true inclusive education and they acknowledged that the major impediments towards the inclusive education were the results of different interpretations of inclusive education, educational inequity and unsustainable education system in different systems.

Asian perceptions towards inclusive education

Thanks to the proliferation of Western ideology of education, inclusive education is on the rise in many developing and developed countries in Asia. But the actual figure speaks volume of low total inclusive participation in Asian countries. Cheung and Hui (2007) noted that in some Asian countries, the school enrolment of disabled students accounted for less than 70% and some of them did not receive any formal education. In most cases, the majority of students with special needs studied at the segregated school and this prolonged the discrimination against the disabled students and social disenfranchisement of them from society. Specific examples of how Asian countries implemented their approaches towards education for the children with special needs are discussed in the next paragraph.

According to Mitchell and Desai (2005) and Cheung and Hui (2007), Vietnam was seen as the forerunner in implementing the inclusive practices at school as indicated in 1995 report from

Centre for Special Education of the Ministry of Education and Training. More schools catered to needs of students with special needs i.e. in three provinces, 80% of the school districts supported integrated education and 26,102 children with special needs received education in thirty-three provinces in Vietnam. However at the other extreme end of continuum, Mongolia and Indonesia were viewed negatively as noncommittal towards inclusive education; segregated education formed the major and separate sphere of their national education. Even their future plans did not mention about the inclusion of students with special needs. Instead it mainly discussed the construction of special schools in every district (Cheng & Hui, 2007). In Mitchell and Desai (2005)’s research on

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

Asian philosophy on inclusive education, they found that the majority of Asian countries including

Japan and Singapore indicated their neutral attitudes towards inclusive education. Mitchell and Desai

(2005) had outlined all these specific country examples that they conducted their research in Asia. In

South Korea, despite Special Education Law that required the regular schools to include students with special needs, the schools, however, preferred to take cautionary approach that the needs of the

Korean disabled should be fully understood first and teachers should be sufficiently equipped with necessary skills and knowledge. Nepal piloted first Special Education Programme in 1993 for the students with mild and moderate disabilities but it was expensive to maintain special rehabilitative facilities at the mainstream schools, thus making it difficult to achieve inclusion education in Nepal.

In Papua New Guinea, according to Mitchell (2003), the education ministry had implemented 1993

National Special Education Plan but still the full inclusion was not sustainable. The similar thing happened in the Philippines even though it enacted 1992 Magna Carta for Disabled Persons.

Pakistan spearheaded 5-Year Plan (1998 to 2003) to provide integrated/inclusive programmes for

Pakistani disabled students in all provinces and set certain quota for certain number of disabled students. However, lack of necessary infrastructure and teacher trainings hindered their plan of inclusion in many regions in Pakistan. The education policy in Taiwan required at least 80% of

Taiwanese special needs students to study in the regular classrooms but it did not include the mentally and physically challenged students. The Hong Kong government was pro-active in providing integration programmes but disabled students were only allowed to enroll at the mainstream schools depending on the severity of their disabilities. In Thailand, thanks to the major education conference “Education for All” being held in Thailand in 1990, the spill-over effect was immediately felt. Notwithstanding an increase in number of inclusive schools in Thailand, integrated programmes still constituted the main core of total special education for Thai disabled students.

While India recognised all Indian disabled students’ rights to education by enforcing the Persons with Disabilities Act in 1995, the society’s partisan attitude was largely shaped by rigid caste system and Hinduism. Central to their beliefs, disabilities were associated with the disabled people’s retribution for sins committed in their previous reincarnations. Sheer lack of awareness of legislation

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY and coordination among government ministries created a big stumbling block to the road of inclusion in India.

Another study undertaken by Deng, Poon-Mcbrayer and Farnsworth (2001), they found that

China was faced with a huge challenge to include disabled Chinese students in the regular school.

China began to enter into ideological conflict between Asian values (Confucianism and socialism) and Western ideology and pragmatism. After the introduction of first Compulsory Education Act, the enrolment rate of disabled students (577 to 1,437) and the number of special schools (57,600 to

358,372) rocketed astronomically over the ten years from 1988 to 1998 (Deng et al., 2001). Yet, many disabled children, who lived in remote villages, remained out of school and the provision of special schools to every village was virtually impossible. It proposed that the special school be form

‘the backbone of the system while a large number of special classes and learning in regular classrooms will serve as a body’ (Michell & Desai, 2005; pg. 291). It implemented the ‘Learning in

Regular Classroom movement’ programme (随班就读) based on the different concept of inclusive education defined by the Chinese government. Deng, Poon-Mcbrayer and Farnsworth (2001) pointed out that eventually the regular schools in China “evolved out of a combination of adherence to the

Western concept and pragmatic considerations of Chinese social and educational conditions” (pg.

291).

Built on four significant factors being identified, Confucianism, socialism, Western ideology and pragmatism, this explained how the Chinese perception towards inclusive education deviated from the original Western ideology. In the view of Confucianism, it did not recognise the individualism that was largely espoused in Western ideology of inclusive education but it stressed on collectivism where “Confucianism emphasized the development of the individual as a social being, as an element of the family and of the society at large” (Cheng, 1990; pg. 241). Socialism formed a bulwark of Chinese politics and the concept of individual needs and choice was never assimilated in the society mores. Deng, Poon-Mcbrayer and Farnsworth (2001) stated that all children whether disabled or not, were not considered as an individual entity but rather as a group entity that should receive same amount and quality of education. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping opened up China to foreign

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY businesses and it resulted in its Chinese education system being exposed to the onslaught of western ideologies towards education system. However, China did not succumb to their ideologies readily but tried to ‘re-traditionalize’ the system by fusing the Chinese traditional approaches with Western ideologies. Lastly, being driven by pragmatic reasons to provide education for all children in China, it was practically impossible to mobilise thousands of teachers to be trained in special education or to establish special schools for a small number of disabled children in sparsely populated villages. As a result it created a strong push-factor for modified version of inclusion of Chinese students with special needs in the regular schools across Chinese provinces.

1.2 TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES AND TEACHING-EFFICACY

Avramidis, Bayliss and Burden (2000b) argued that inclusive education had its profound implications on the school teachers in the regular school settings as more teachers grappled with increased pressure to carry out broad range of teaching duties as compared to the previous generations of teachers. Beloin and Peterson (1998) pointed out that nowadays educators in the inclusive school settings were required to take on challenge of meeting increasingly diverse needs of students. They needed to customize their teaching pedagogies to satisfy different needs of disabled students and to be able to fulfil the demanding roles of inclusive teacher psychologically and practically (Mullen, 2001). Inclusive education when applied in the context of students with special needs, referred to the process of teaching students in the regular schools with appropriate resources and support (Winter, 2006). What’s more, the definition of inclusion varied from country to country and it affects differently how each country implemented the inclusive education (Poon, Ng, Wong &

Kaur, 2016). Many studies found that the success of inclusive education depended on the positive attitudes of school teachers (Avramidis, Bayliss & Burden, 2000; Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1996;

Soodak & Podell, 1994; Wilczenski, 1992) and high sense of teaching-efficacy of educators (Caprara,

Barbaranelli, Steca & Malone, 2006; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). It is imperative for educators to welcome and internalize the notion of inclusion as they work closely with students with special needs on a daily basis (Stella, Forlin & Lan, 2007). They are also responsible to transmit the positive

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY attitudes and values to typically developing students and to inculcate the inclusive ethos where respect for diversity is nurtured and students with special needs are regarded as members of school community (Poon et al., 2016).

However, the extent to which inclusive education is carried out successfully depends on the degree of teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion (Yeo, Chong, Neihart &

Huan, 2014) and their willingness to create the optimal learning school environments (Avramidis &

Norwich, 2002; Sharma, Forlin & Loreman, 2008). The studies showed that nonchalant or negative attitudes by mainstream teachers created negative repercussions on the students with special needs and it could lead to disenfranchisement of students with special needs from the social peers, psycho-social stress and low sense of self-worth about themselves. Teachers’ negative behaviours towards students with special needs might influence students without special needs to display their discrimination and non-acceptance towards their peers with special needs (Holzbauer & Conrad,

2010; Shakespeare & Watson, 1997). Another research conducted by Alghazo, Dodeen and

Algaryouti (2003), Avramidis and Kalyva (2007), Avramidis and Norwich (2002), Hastings and

Oakford (2003), Lambe and Bones (2006), Romi and Leyser (2006), Scruggs and Mastropieri (1996), and Sharma, Moore, and Sonawane (2009) indicated that teachers were still ambivalent about including students with special needs in the mainstream classrooms and they were more inclined to prefer the conventional system of teaching them in a segregated school settings.

1.3 DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM AND PROBLEM STATEMENTS

This section provides the description of the problem and key problem statements.

According to Forlin, Keen and Barrett (2008), though many researches strongly supported that most regular school teachers held their positive viewpoints towards inclusive education. However, many of them still had their reservations about the implementation of inclusive class practices.

First of all, many teachers expressed their grave concerns about administrative issues related to lack of class preparation, collaboration with para-professionals and other teachers, and necessary modification of class curriculums to suit the needs of students with special needs. They were heavily

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY bogged down by many administrative issues that they could not find time to “attend case management meetings, update students’ progress on their Individual Education Plans (IEPS), complete [necessary] paperwork, and meet parents” (Yeo et al., 2014; pg. 4).

Secondly, many teachers were concerned about day-to-day classroom issues i.e. large class sizes, students’ misbehaviours and lack of adequate manpower resources (Forlin et al., 2008). In the case of Japan and Singapore, both countries had their common features of education: large class size, averaging more than 30 students per class and regular teachers had their hard time to devote their attentions to students with special needs in their classrooms (TALIS, 2013a).

Third, many teachers were not well-equipped with their professional knowledge and competence to manage their students with special needs due to insufficient trainings in special needs.

Lack of training opportunities in special needs was found to be strongly correlated with their negative perception towards students with special needs (Koutrouba, Vamvakari, & Steliou, 2006).

Lastly, Japan and Singapore remained newcomers to inclusive education as evident from studies conducted by (Takeshi, 2016; Yeo et al., 2014). Moreover, there were limited research studies on educational inclusion on Japan and Singapore. The preliminary findings on the claim about the limited number of research studies on two countries were presented below.

1.3.1 Case of Japan

Most English journals focused on the policy trends of special education or contemporary issues relating to students with special needs in Japan (Farrell, 2001; Forlin, Kawai & Higuchi, 2015;

Jimenez & Ochiai, 2004; Oka, 2010; Takuma, Ochiai & Munekata, 2007). Out of these policy-related issues, only one journal discussed the contemporary legislative and policy analysis in

Japan and Australia (Ree, 2015). Apart from it, some English journal papers discussed on the particular group of teachers – physical education teachers – and their viewpoints about inclusive education (Hodge et al., 2009; Hodge, Sato, Mukoyama & Kozub, 2013; Sato & Hodge, 2009; Sato,

Hodge, Murata & Maeda, 2007). Speaking of attitudes and teaching-efficacy among Japanese mainstream school teachers, there were only 2 papers; one of them discussed on the comparative study of Japanese and Korean regular teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY students with special needs (Song, 2016) and the other reviewed the country analysis of Chinese,

Indonesian, Korean and Japanese teachers’ general teaching efficacy towards inclusive education

(Schwarzer et al., 1997).

However, there were significant number of Japanese journals that discussed the trends of inclusive and special education in Japan (Forlin et al., 2015; Kajiyama et al., 2016; Takahashi &

Matsuzaki, 2014; Wakamatsu, 2014; Wakamatsu & Taninaka, 2013). Again, only three Japanese papers discussed teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education (Takahashi,

Igarashi, Kanno & Tsurumaki, 2016; Takahashi, Igarashi & Tsurumaki, 2014; Yoshitoshi, 2014).

1.3.2 Case of Singapore

Compared to Japan, there are more English journal reviews on inclusive education including teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream classrooms. Most of them discussed the history, trends, current situation and future directions of inclusive education in early childhood settings (Lim & Quah, 2004; Lim & Tan, 1999;

Mok, 2003; Poon, Musti-Ra & Wettasinghe, 2013; Yeo, Neihart, Tang, Chong & Huan, 2011). They also focused on pre-service teachers who taught at the primary school (Tam, Seevers, Gardner &

Heng, 2006) and pre-school schools (Poon et al., 2016; Sharma, Forlin, Loreman & Earle, 2006;

Sharma, Ee, & Desai, 2003; Thaver & Lim, 2014; Thaver, Lim & Liau, 2014). However, there are very few reviews on in-service teachers and teachers who taught at secondary schools and above. So far, only one journal discussed on the comparative study of Canadian and Singaporean secondary school teachers’ beliefs about inclusive education ( Klassen et al., 2008).

Summing up, based on the results from my investigation, it clearly indicates that there is a potential research gap given the scarcity of research papers on Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs.

1.3.3 Problem Statements

The dissertation title is carefully thought out and chosen because of the potential gaps highlighted in the literature reviews. This presents an opportunity to conduct two country case study

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY analyses of Japan and Singapore. First, as discussed above, there are limited researches on inclusive education in two countries, much less on teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education in the mainstream schools. Second, most of the literature reviews for the past decades largely discussed the inclusive education in the developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on the poorer regions in the developing countries that attracted greater attention and urgency from international bodies of research. Third, in the case of Japan, most of the reviews are largely devoted to the development of inclusive education with the greater focus on the policy-level.

It presents the scarcity of literature reviews to discuss the implementation level or ground level that concerns the school teachers’ perception towards the students with special needs. Likewise in

Singapore, few papers discuss the in-service and secondary teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy

Considering all these, these country case studies in Japan and Singapore seem a perfect area to conduct the greater in-depth research on both primary and secondary school teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusive education from the ground-level vantage point.

1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

Henceforth, this proposed study intends to use mixed-methods research methodology to assess what kind of attitudes and teaching-efficacy the mainstream school teachers hold towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the Japanese and Singapore regular schools and identify the key factors (e.g. teacher age, training, years of teaching experience, possession of knowledge related to legal disability issues) that influence their attitudes and teaching-efficacy. It also seeks to evaluate the relationship between the teaching-efficacy and attitudes held by teachers towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms. Lastly, it also intends to investigate what kind of challenges the regular teachers faced including their students with special needs and how they devised their strategies to address these challenges.

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

1.5 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The mixed-methods research was executed over the period of nearly three years in Japan and Singapore including the pilot-test study. A total of 189 Japanese and 183 Singaporean in-service teachers participated in the quantitative research and 38 Japanese and fifteen Singaporean teachers were invited to participate in the semi-structured interviews.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of this research manifests in the possibility of educational reforms in

Japan and Singapore especially in the context of inclusive education. Findings from this research may not be as definitive as expected but it is believed that it could provide useful information on the current situation about teachers’ perspectives towards the inclusion of students with special needs.

Teachers need to ensure that they are knowledgeable enough about their unique needs and identify appropriate teaching practices to better support them in their learning and in their interaction with their peers. According to Ohan, Cormier, Hepp Visser and Strain (2008), teachers who had sufficient awareness about the disability could provide better quality of support and more adaptive experience for students with special needs and therefore it is worthwhile to investigate further how teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy affected the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms.

Bandura (1986) argued that teaching self-efficacy was proven to be one of the powerful teacher characteristics that influenced the teacher and classroom effectiveness. The findings could help to develop better teacher preparation coursework training programmes. In the long run, this, in turn, could translate into positive and welcoming attitudes in teachers towards the persons with special needs in the society.

Finally, the research on teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs is particularly limited in Singapore and Japan as there are few journal studies on the issues of teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy in both countries. This research hopes to make a positive contribution to the body of literature. My findings indicate that teachers’

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY positive attitudes and strong sense of teaching-efficacy directly improve the success rate of inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms.

1.7 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS

This dissertation consists of eight chapters including the introductory chapter of the dissertation. The review of the literature on inclusive education, definitions of different educational placements with their accompanying merits and demerits, teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy, and theoretical and conceptual analytical framework of this dissertation in Chapter 2.

Chapter 3 discusses the mixed-methods research design and explains my intention to carry out this study. Various design methods are discussed to provide a better understanding of why and how methods are purposively selected and implemented to execute the actual research.

The following fourth and fifth chapters will discuss the general background of selected country case studies that is Japan and Singapore. These two chapters intend to give an in-depth background of Japanese and Singapore history of education and to chronicle the development of inclusive education, including the background information on policy development. This hopes to give the readers a better understanding that background information about inclusive education in both countries should deserve attention from scholars and policy makers.

Chapter 6 discusses the detailed findings from the quantitative research. It includes statistical findings based on the important factors that contribute to the Singaporean and Japanese teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusive class practices.

Engagement in semi-structured interviews with Japanese and Singaporean teachers follows up on the quantitative findings to unravel reasons with why- and how- qualitative questions in

Chapter 7.

Finally, Chapter 8 concludes the thesis by summarizing the findings and applying several theoretical interpretations to explain these findings. Major key discussion points are raised before I share my research limitations and recommendations for future research. It also provides academic and policy contributions towards this study and it is hoped that this research study in Japan and

Singapore will set an useful reference for other future researches on developed Asian countries.

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Who Stole Your Mind “Who stole your mind when you were still a child? Who built a fence around it, locked a gate, Mislaid the key, then looked at you and smile A loving smile? And why? Thus domiciled And tamed, your thoughts – confused – would soon stagnate And sicken a pale as covered grass. So mild, Obedient, you became. Your charm beguiled Us, hid your sadness, fear, and (later) hate.” - A disabled poet, James Turner in his poem

“Who Stole Your Mind” (Retish & Reiter, 1999)

This poignant poem written by an autistic poet, James Turner, shed the light on his pain of being shut out from his school. He shared his experience of being tormented and staying in the prison of his containment due to the rejection from the society, as evidenced from his second verse

“who built a fence around it, locked a gate”. The poem painted a pessimistic mood to portray his abysmal feeling when he was not emotionally and physically included in the mainstream school.

This sends an important reminder to the society including the teachers and other stakeholders the crucial importance of including the students with special needs in the regular class instructions.

2.1 INTRODUCTION

The literature reviews on main sections: educational philosophies towards the placement of students with special needs, types of models concerning disability, teachers’ efficacy and attitudes towards inclusive education and theoretical/conceptual framework for this research are essential to provide the information about inclusive education and teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education.

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2.2 REFLECTION ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

This section discusses on the inclusive education, presenting several controversies from various angles surrounding the inclusive education, to debate on the merits and demerits of different educational philosophies – segregation, integration and inclusion. t.

2.2.1 What does the term “inclusion” really mean?

Many conventions and treaties were initiated by international organisations to encourage and promote the inclusive provisions for all students with special educational needs. The issue of inclusion has been pushed to the forefront of the international, regional and local educational agenda in many countries and it encouraged greater discussions surrounding the term “inclusion” and its implications. Originally the objective behind the movement towards inclusive education was to focus on the inclusion of students with special needs who were excluded from the regular schools

(Forlin, 2008). However, this objective has evolved towards the notion of equity and social inclusion, not just limited to the disability group (OECD, 2008). Forlin and Sin (2010; pg. 9) aptly put it that way: “[m]aking education available to all is seen as one of the most powerful levers to making society more equitable as it enhances social cohesion and trust. Inclusion is now considered to be a much broader philosophy that seeks to address inequity and fairness by focusing on the inclusion of all students regardless of disability, gender, ethnicity or other disadvantage”. Likewise, Ang (n.d.; pg.

1) wrote that the inclusion was viewed within the “larger theoretical framework of social justice, participation and advocacy” and this philosophy was based on the common premise that inclusive education must be made equitable and accessible for all children and yet specifically responsive to individual needs.

The concept of inclusive education is widely accepted and yet the use of the term “inclusion” remains controversial. The term alone itself is ambiguous and does not provide a clear definition to what the inclusion actually refers in the context of students with special needs. Education scholars provided different meanings of inclusion: Avramidis and Norwich (2002; pg. 131) defined it as “a restructuring of mainstream schooling that every school can accommodate every child irrespective of

LITERATURE REVIEW disability (‘accommodation’ rather than ‘assimilation’) and ensures that all learners belong to a community”. Kunc (1992) made his similar argument that inclusion was all about restructuring of education system to promote the sense of belonging to a community among the learners and the inclusion welcomed the notion of diversity as part of human learning. He also argued that the philosophy of inclusion should be part of the human right agenda that deemed all kinds of segregation as morally unacceptable. Loreman, Earle, Sharma and Forlin (2007) cited the notion of social justice as a basis of inclusive education that advocated all learners’ equal access to all learning opportunities regardless of differences. They also stressed that “all children should be educated in the least restrictive environment, closest to their place of residences and in the best interest of the child” (Loreman, Earle, Sharma & Forlin, ibid; pg. 700). Another scholar, Guralnick (2001), interpreted differently that inclusion, as practised, took many forms depending on the circumstances and varied from one form to other depending on the degree to which students with and without special needs were included with one another. He outlined five major models of inclusion for students with special needs and these included: a) Full inclusion; b) Cluster inclusion; c) Reverse inclusion; and d) Social inclusion and this will be discussed briefly later.

Second, the concept of inclusive education is widely regarded as the basis of ideological, legal and theoretical ground and there is a limited empirical evidence to support the claim that inclusive education could benefit the children with special needs in some ways (Guralnick, 2001).

For instance, little empirical evidence found that the child with special needs could feel one’s sense of belonging from his/her participation in the inclusive classroom or developed any close bonding with his/her classmates during the inclusive class activity.

The third issue deals with the pragmatic issues surrounding the inclusion: what are kinds of outcomes from the inclusion that the stakeholders and policy-makers are exactly hoping to achieve either educational or social benefits? One could not have the best of both worlds of achieving high academic results and full social acceptance of disabled children by their peers. In order to maximise either of each desirable benefits, how much does the classroom structure need to be modified in the interests of inclusive education? How much do we need to leverage on limited resources for them so

LITERATURE REVIEW as to create least restrictive environment for all children? These above-mentioned scenarios per se pose a challenge to how we address these areas of concerns and how we ensure that we can provide the best option for the children with and without special needs alike.

2.2.2 Types of models of inclusion

Based on these problems relating to inclusion discussed above, it is naturally expected that not all the children with special needs may be equally benefitted from the full-scale of class inclusion and therefore variations of inclusions need to be considered to best suit the cultural background and country contexts (Guralnick 2001) .

Full inclusion

Full inclusion simply means children with special needs are fully involved in all general classroom programmes and is considered to be the most ideal type of inclusion programme. All class activities are fully adapted to meet the individual students’ needs and to be sure, all educators including specialists provide either intermittent or on-going services for the students with special needs. Making the full inclusion truly possible, it needs the combination of team work from teachers

(Bruder, 1996), round-table consultation with stakeholders (Buysse & Wesley, 1993) and integrated teaching strategies (McWilliam, 1996). As a matter of fact, the full inclusion is hard to be achieved given the limited resources and differing beliefs towards inclusion held by teachers.

Cluster inclusion

Cluster model shares the similar features as the full model of inclusion but only a small group of students with special needs is included in the regular classroom with their own support teacher.

They are usually assigned at the physically designated location within the classroom where their support teacher could easily manage alongside with the regular classroom teacher. This model is adopted at some primary schools in Singapore where some hearing impaired students join their regular classrooms with their support staff from their special school. This concept is known as satellite partnership between mainstream and special schools (Hong, 2012).

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Figure 2-1: Cluster inclusion

Special School Mainstream School

Classroom

Source: Created by author

Reverse inclusion

It refers to the process of bringing some students without special needs (or developing peers) out of their general classrooms to the special schools for a short period of time to interact with students with special needs in the special education classroom (Schoger, 2006). There are some benefits associated with reverse inclusion: it enables students with special needs to develop their close bonding with their typically developing peers and it helps them to develop effective communication skills in them. It could increase disabled students’ chances of joining the actual inclusive class if they are able to function well with their classmates in the regular classroom settings.

Not only it benefits students with special needs, students without special needs are equally benefitted from developing their social skills and empathy with someone who is different from them.

Figure 2-2: Reverse inclusion

Special School Mainstream School

Source: Created by author

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Social inclusion

Social inclusion has the least amount of degree of contact opportunities between students with and without special needs. They are schooled in the same school buildings but they are housed in the physically separate locations within the same building where the disabled would receive separate instructions from special education teachers. Planned contact between them usually occurs during the non-academic subjects e.g. physical education, or music lessons and this provides an opportunity for them to interact with each other. This kind of model is commonly adopted at

Japanese schools where Japanese students with special needs are placed in the separate classrooms known as 特別支援学級.

Figure 2-3: Social inclusion

Special classroom Regular classroom

Mainstream School

Source: Created by author

2.2.3 Models of disability

It is essential to understand the theoretical concept behind the evolution of inclusive education and how the different models of disability influence different placement outcome of students with special needs. The readers need to understand how the government and society devise ways to interpret and understand disability based on different models of disability. This section provides a short discussion of what the disability really means and how the society devises the strategies to develop models of disability to meet the needs of people with special needs.

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What is disability?

According to United Nations (2006), the Article 1 in the CRPD provides the description of persons with special needs as “those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”. This description is found to be consistent with the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) that is put forward by the

World Health Organization (2016). Up to now, there is no universal accepted definition of disability as there are different interpretations of disability that make it very challenging to harmonise the definition of disability to meet different contexts. For example, a simple question: can we say that a person with his/her short sightedness is considered to be disabled because of his/her inability to see things clearly? Probably most people would disagree with this statement while in some countries, some people believed it so. Therefore, the ICF has already set up the general guidelines on disability which are based on different models of disability. The guidelines help to interpret disability and provide a ground framework for the policy-makers to devise strategies to address the needs of people with special needs. However, we must bear in mind that these models of disability are not “fully cast in stone” but they merely serve as guidelines to understand the concept of disability.

Charity model

It is considered to be the oldest and most-outdated interpretation of disability and it is perceived to be a kind of punishment, karma and tragedy, often seen as a form of intervention from the omnipotent beings. Depending on the types of disability, the person is perceived to be unable to carry out normal bodily functions i.e. cannot hear, see, learn or work. Simply put, disability is equivalent to their inherent deficit in their bodily functions. Also, they are often perceived to be incapable of helping themselves and leading their independent lives, thereby perpetuating society’s negative perception that their situations are tragic.

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Figure 2-4: Charity model of disability

To be pitied Lifelong suffering To be looked after

Problem = Cannot see, Outcast, Disabled walk or hear misfits individual Sad, tragic, Karma Bitter, aggressive, twisted misfortunate

Source: Adopted from Harrison (2003; pg. 172)

Medical model

This model conceptualises the disability as a disabling condition that must be treated or cured with treatment from health professionals and pushes the persons with disability into the passive roles of patient that they are often unwilling to assume. This objective of medical model is to “rehabilitate” them to be as normal as possible. The medical model places the source of problem in the disabled person who has to be fixed, not the society or environment. Therefore, it requires a quick-fix or long-term solution within the individual by assisting him/her to overcome his/her personal disability to meet the dominant and socially acceptable norms.

Figure 2-5: Medical model of disability

To be cured Sheltered Special institutions employment

Problem = Cannot see, Special schools Disabled walk or hear individual Rehabilitation Medical Therapists professionals

Source: Adopted from Harrison (2003; pg. 172)

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Social model

Social model was evolved to view the disability positively as the consequence of environmental, attitudinal and social obstacles that inherently existed within the society and prevented their normal participation in the society. This requires the proactive removal of these environmental, attitudinal and social barriers in order to maximise their full participation in the society. Therefore, the onus is placed on the society, not the disabled individuals whereby the society must provide reasonable accommodation for their needs. The society is persuaded to change their former role of curing and caring for them to more proactive role to assist the disabled individuals to take control of their own lives.

Figure 2-6: Social model of disability

Accessible transport Respect human rights Inclusive society

Equal job Inclusive Problem = opportunities education Society

Ban discrimination Accessible building Disability protection

Source: Adopted from Harrison (2003; pg. 172)

Figure 2-7 provides a scenario of a disabled individual who is perceived differently based on different models of disability. The top picture depicts the charity model which the disabled person does not enjoy his/her equal rights to full participation in the society. Next, there are some measures provided for the disabled persons but they must put in their efforts to fit in the society (Medial model). The picture below shows the social model that the society ought to make its accommodation to meet every need of the disabled persons so that they can be fully included in the society.

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Figure 2-7: Various scenarios that depict different models of disability

Source: Adapted from Handicap International (n.d.)

2.2.4 Philosophies towards placement of students with special needs

This section examines the concept of segregation, integration and inclusion in educating children with special needs. In this section, it introduces the definitions as well as the advantages and disadvantages of these different education philosophies respectively. The application of specific educational philosophy at the particular school depends on many factors that relate to “imperatives established by national curriculum statements, interpretations of research, experience, the relative dominance of various stakeholder groups in decision-making processes, cultural interpretations, financial factors, the demography of [the persons with special needs] population, …, beliefs about the role of technology, and philosophical positions” (Hyde, Ohna & Hjulstadt, 2005; pg. 416).

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Philosophy of segregation

A segregated education is defined as being a self-contained classroom with adequate resources for students with special needs. Different types of disabilities require customized resources and specific types of training required for teachers. These classes or schools could exist as a separate entity from the regular classrooms or schools and it establishes a boundary between the segregated classroom and regular classroom, restricting all kinds of interaction, teaching pedagogies and communication styles within the special classrooms to neatly fit the learning needs of students with special needs. Segregated classrooms/schools provide a protective environment to help them acquire necessary skills at their own learning paces.

Advantages and disadvantages of Segregated Education

Several bodies of literature on segregated classrooms mentioned that special educators with their special skills and knowledge were able to provide the disabled with their individualized attention, accommodations and support that resulted in their meaningful learnings. Bauer (1994; pg.

22-23), who shared his personal experience through his interaction with his foster autistic brother, wrote,

“Clearly these young people [students with special needs] will be receiving treatment from a specialist [special educator], in an environment which is conducive to a small specialist-client relationship. Out of such a relationship one is much more likely to acquire a sense of belongness [sic] and significance than by being integrated (included) into classrooms in which one has far fewer opportunities to have ones [sic] needs attended to. Where, in reality, one is likely to feel the psychological impact of not being able to handle the demands in the classroom with the same measure of ease as the regular students.”

Depending on their Individualized Education Plan (IEP), the disabled felt that they actually experienced less pressure in special classes and learnt customized academic contents at their own paces (Bauer, 1994; Poon-McBrayer, 2002). However, the critics of the segregated education centred on their arguments that it was “synonymous with [disabled students’] limitations, exclusion, and low status” (Powell, 2011; pg. 24). He further criticised that segregated students would experience “an increased risk of becoming disabled, of experiencing poverty and social exclusion…[c]onsiderable

LITERATURE REVIEW inequalities in learning opportunities”. In addition, the partial reason explained that the special schools focused on the disabled’s deficits rather than celebrating the diversity in the classrooms. It further reinforced their beliefs that they were always disabled in some ways. What’s more, students with special needs lost out on their opportunities to mingle with their non-disabled person, perpetuating lack of mutual understanding between them. Such human traits for effective communication and mutual understanding are highly prized at future workplaces and in the longer term, persons with special needs would further disenfranchise themselves from the society. In summary, the cons associated with outcomes of segregated special education outweighs the pros as it results in social alienation from the mainstream society, diminished quality of life and limited career prospects.

Philosophy of integration

This term is commonly coined to describe the process of providing children with special needs with limited support in regular classrooms and it is often used interchangeably with mainstreaming. Idol (1997; pg. 384 - 385) distinguished between integrated and inclusive education that “[i]nclusion is 100% placement in general education, whereas in mainstreaming, a student with special needs is educated partially in a special education program, but to the maximum extent possible [sic] is educated in the general education program”. At most, limited amount of therapy or rehabilitative service was provided and this system did not make any concession for any modification to teaching pedagogies and school infrastructures for their needs.

Advantages and disadvantages of Integrated Education

It is widely acknowledged that integration education makes a fair compromise for the students with special needs who “are not functioning well in general education classes and returns them when they are able to function academically and socially” (Snyder, Garriott & Aylor, 2001; pg.

199). The school needs to ensure that the students with special needs are able to prepare themselves academically, socially and emotionally before transitioning to the mainstream schools. Henceforth, the merit of having integrated education is to allow students with special needs to have the best of both worlds i.e. to receive the dedicated attention from the special educator and they do not lose out

LITERATURE REVIEW on their interactions with their mainstream peers. It gives them better understanding of what is like to experience living in a diverse world

However, the downside of the integrated education creates a big question of whether the sense of belonging is properly inculcated in the child and his/her mainstream classmates. Schnorr

(1990) and Snow (2001) found that mainstream students did not have any opportunity to know their disabled peers well. They found that the disabled students were only present in the classrooms during the certain periods, presenting limited interaction opportunities.

Philosophy of inclusion

According to UNESCO (N.d.), inclusive education is defined as “not simply about making schools available for those who are already able to access them. It is about taking proactive measures in identifying the barriers and obstacles learners encounter in attempting to access [equal] opportunities for quality education, as well as in removing those barriers and obstacles that lead to exclusion”. Snow (2001) advocated that inclusive education was not about “a privilege to be earned, nor a right that is given to given to individuals. Inclusion is – first and foremost – a state of mind”

(pg. 391). It is about every participant, regardless of any inherent differences, being accepted as being equals, but they also make their equal contributions to the society. It brings out the sense of belongings in every individual in this inclusive classroom. Every difference is celebrated in this particular classroom; diversity should be embraced; and the system, not the child, has to be modified to suit every individual needs of the child. Every child has his/her every opportunity to partake in equal learning opportunity being offered to him/her.

Advantages and disadvantages of Inclusive Education

Gale (2001; pg. 271) pointed out “[Inclusive education] is not enough to include students within the same physical spaces. Inclusion is more concerned with the arrangement of social spaces and the opportunities for students to explore and develop within these. The interests of all students also need to be represented within schools, not just the dominant of society.” Unlike integration, inclusion models on an overall holistic philosophy that requires necessary change of mindset towards students with special needs and it requires all members of inclusive classrooms to look

LITERATURE REVIEW beyond their deficits or shortcomings. Antia et al., (2002; pg. 214) contrasted the inclusion with integration that “inclusion denotes a student with disability unconditionally belonging to and having full membership of a regular classroom in a regular school and its community. This is contrasted with integration which implies that the student with a disability has the status of visitor, with only conditional access to a regular classroom, and primary membership of a special class or resource room”. Rallis and Anderson (1994; pg. 8) shared their observations about the inclusive education:

“[T]oday’s classrooms are representative of society and contain a cornucopia of differences. Those children who appear to be ‘normal’ have varying abilities. They bring a complex assortment of experiences, cultures, languages and resources, and many of them feel just as included.”

On the other hand, sceptics of inclusive education oppose that inclusion may result in the erosion of one’s identity and learners may not effectively learn in the classroom if their needs are not adequately met. In addition, the studies showed that including students with their behavioural disorders could disrupt classrooms and may cause mental and emotional distress to other classmates.

Summary of different approaches to students with special needs

This section sums up the different approaches towards the placement of students with special needs. It is illustrated in the Figure 2-8 that depicts how different education philosophies are applied in different situations. In the special education, every child has his/her special needs and this is represented by the square pegs to be fitted in the square holes in the special school. Similarly normal child is represented by normal pegs for the round holes and there is no interaction between the special and normal child in the case of segregated special education. When the child with special needs is integrated in the mainstream school, he or she must be changed in order to fit in the regular classroom. Lastly, inclusive classroom does not require the child with special needs to fit in the rigid classroom settings. Teachers make their effort to customize their teaching pedagogy to meet every need of diverse learners and the picture shows that there are different shapes and sizes of pegs that can be fitted in one inclusive classroom.

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Figure 2-8: Graphical representation of segregation, integration and inclusion

Source: Adapted from Stubbs (2000)

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2.3 TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES AND TEACHING-EFFICACY

Inclusive education has been frequently referenced in the education policies in many countries (Dyson, 1999), including Singapore and Japan and became the main focal point of inclusive education research (Jobe, Rust, & Brissie, 1996). Norwich (1994) pointed that teachers’ commitment to implementation of the inclusive education depended on how they were willing to accept the inclusion policy. Another study found that the biggest major obstacle to the inclusion of students with special needs was the educators’ perspectives towards the inclusive education

(Antonak & Larrivee, 1995). It is necessary to investigate their teaching-efficacy and attitudes to deepen the understanding of the current behaviours towards students with special needs in the different country contexts and also predict their future behaviours.

However, Roux, Roux, Graham, and Carrington (1998) cautioned that inclusive education did not happen overnight without any proper planning, clear visions, available resources and robust support from stakeholders. There must have necessary support from the management level and presence of support mechanism which is in the form of human and physical support. In this study, an understanding of how teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms determines the success of inclusive education (Subban &

Sharma, 2006). In this section, teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitude towards inclusion and various factors that influence teachers’ beliefs are discussed.

2.3.1 Teachers’ teaching efficacy for inclusive practices

Efficacy is defined as one’s beliefs in producing desired effects in the specific situations and is referred to as one’s judgement of capability in executing a given type of performance under certain kinds of circumstances. Simply put, efficacy refers to someone who believes he or she can do under different kinds of circumstances (Bandura, 2001). Bandura (1977) first introduced the concept of efficacy in his work “Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change” and he further revised this work to incorporate his concept as part of his social cognitive theory in his recent work “Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective” (Bandura, 2001). It is also built on the four main sources

LITERATURE REVIEW of information: 1) mastery experiences in which a person has some successful prior experiences in executing certain tasks; 2) vicarious experiences where a person observes some people who successfully accomplish their similar tasks; 3) social persuasion by others to reinforce a person’s belief in accomplishing his/her tasks successfully; and 4) somatic and emotional states that provide information that a person uses to judge his/her strength and vulnerability (Bandura, 1977;

Tschannen-Moran, Hoy & Hoy, 1998). Out of four major sources of efficacy, mastery experiences are perceived to be the most powerful as they could provide a conduit as to what the primary actor has already achieved and how it takes him/her to achieve one’s particular tasks (Bandura, 1997). Any or all of these four sources of self-efficacy could be influenced by cultural contexts or other mitigating factors e.g. collectivism or individualism (Klassen et al., 2009). As a result, one’s efficacy in one particular situation could be different from others who do not feel efficacious in different situations.

The importance of efficacy on human behaviours is manifested through cognitive, affective, motivational and decisional processes. It also determines whether the primary actors would respond to the situation positively or negatively and how they enact their behaviours in self-enabling or self-disabling ways. Efficacy also influences people’s motivation and levels of perseverance to the extent which they persist in overcoming their obstacles while accomplishing their challenging tasks.

People with high sense of efficacy are more likely to set high expectations, pushing themselves to invest considerable efforts in achieving their goals. On the other hand, those with lower sense of efficacy tend to distrust themselves and do not even consider to attempt to perform particular tasks in which they have no or little confidence in their capabilities (Bandura, 2012). As shown in the Figure

2-9, efficacy could manifest itself in the behavioural outcomes directly and indirectly. These structural paths of influence fanned out from efficacy to outcome expectation, goals and socio-structural factors and finally converge to behaviour output. In this model, outcome expectation is defined as one’s self-evaluation of his/her reactions to certain circumstances; goals serve as strong incentives and guides for one’s particular course of actions; and socio-structural factors determine how the primary actors perceive the structural features of their environment, be it barriers or

LITERATURE REVIEW opportunities they present. Finally based on the outcomes of efficacy, it would ultimately determine the type of behaviour in response to particular situation.

Figure 2-9: Sources of efficacy and the structural paths from sources of efficacy to behaviour.

Mastery Experiences Outcome Expectation Vicarious s Experiences

Efficacy Goals Behaviour Social Persuasion

Socio-structural Somatic and factors emotional

states Source: Adapted from Bandura (1977), modified by author.

Likewise, when it comes to the teaching efficacy, it is generally understood as teachers’ belief or conviction in their abilities that they are able to influence their students’ learning abilities despite their learning difficulties or low motivation (Guskey & Passaro, 1994). According to

Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy and Hoy (1998), teachers with high level of efficacy beliefs would put in greater efforts that could lead to better performances. Another research conducted by Gibson and Dembo (1984), they found that highly efficacious teachers were more persistent in identifying different strategies to help to cope with their students’ learning difficulties and they did not resort to any form of criticism for their students’ work. Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2007) also found that veteran teachers tended to have more mastery experiences than novice teachers. However, other researches that disputed this finding; novice teachers are found to have higher sense of teaching efficacy but the sense of teaching efficacy declines with the years of teaching (Hoy & Spero, 2005).

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In conclusion, based on those several cases of inconsistencies from these previous studies, it is concluded that teaching-efficacy is very much context-dependent (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk

Hoy, 2007) and therefore there is a need to test the theoretical assumptions related to teaching-efficacy in diverse school and cultural contexts (Klassen, Tze, Betts & Gordon, 2011).

Recently, there is a growing interest in conducting research on teaching-efficacy for inclusive practices. Many of previous studies adopted general teacher-efficacy scales e.g. Teacher Efficacy

Scale developed by Gibson and Dembo (1984). At that time, there was no specialized research tool to assess their teaching-efficacy in such an inclusive education setting until Sharma, Loreman and

Forlin (2012) devised a new research tool called Teacher Self-Efficacy for Inclusive Practices Scale

(TEIP) which comprises of three main subscales: a) efficacy in using inclusive instructions which teachers are able to customize their instructions and assessment according to their students’ needs; b) efficacy in managing disruptive behaviours; and c) efficacy in collaboration with their stakeholders e.g. other school staff, professionals, and parents. This scale is frequently used in many papers including their own publication papers (Forlin & Sin, 2010; Malinen, Savolainen & Xu, 2012).

2.3.2 Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion

The popularity of attitude as a research topic has been dated back as early as 20th century and Allport (1935; pg. 798) put in his own words: “the concept of attitude is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept” in the area of social psychology and attitude research (Bohner

& Dickel, 2011; Krosnick, Judd & Wittenbrink, 2005). The word attitude is defined as “a latent disposition or tendency to respond with some degree of favorableness or unfavorableness to a psychological object” (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010; pg 76). It also refers to the concrete or abstract evaluation of an object that concerns anything a primary actor holds in his/her mind (Bohner &

Dickel, 2011). The more positive the attitudes towards a specific type of behaviour, the more likely the individual is going to execute that behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and it is also applicable to one’s attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream schools.

There are three main components that constitute the attitude: cognitive, affective and behavioural component (Leatherman & Niemeyer, 2005; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). As shown in the

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Figure 2-10, the cognitive component refers to one’s beliefs or knowledge about the attitude object.

For instance, teachers in the mainstream schools who have sufficient knowledge about inclusive education could represent this component e.g. one teacher may say, “I have learnt about inclusive education and because of that, I believe that students with special needs should be included in the regular school”. Affective component refers to the one’s feeling about the attitude object. One teacher may say, “I feel that inclusion of students with special needs could either promote better understanding among their regular peers or create negative impact on others in the class”. Lastly, the behavioural component reflects one’s predisposition to respond towards the attitude object in a certain way. For example, some teachers would probably say, “I don’t think I am able to provide my support to that student with autism”.

Figure 2-10: The concept of attitude and its three main components

Cognitive component (One’s beliefs and knowledge) Affective component Attitudes (One’s feelings)

Behavioural component (One’s predisposition to Source: Adapted from Leatherman and Niemeyer (2005), and Eagly and Chaiken (1993) act)

In line with the concept of inclusive education, there is a strong need for schools and teachers to modify and adopt their inclusive attitudes towards students with special needs (Kinsella & Senior,

2008). For example, Berry (2010; pg. 76) wrote that “a teacher who believes that inclusion is unfair to typically achieving students may act in subtle (or not so subtle) ways that negatively affect students with disabilities in that classroom. It may be that the presence or absence of positive attitudes and a sense of commitment to principles of inclusion can tip teachers toward making or avoiding efforts to effectively teach students with disabilities”. This statement illustrates the importance of teachers’ attitudes as the key driver to successful implementation of inclusive education for students with special needs (Avramidis & Norwich, 2002; Soodak, Podell & Lehman,

1998). As such, teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education are of paramount importance in this

LITERATURE REVIEW research study as they would reveal how much they developed their inclusive strategies for their students with special needs. According to Bender, Vail & Scott (1995), they found that teachers with positive attitudes towards inclusion were more likely to use effective inclusive instructional strategies to include students with special needs as fully as possible as compared to other teachers with negative attitudes. Another similar study carried out by Soodak, Podell, and Lehman (1998), those teachers who showed their positive willingness to include their students with special needs tended to put in their efforts to educate them.

2.3.3 Relationship between teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy

Teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy form the two key concepts that are discussed in this current research study. According to the previous researches, many scholars have found that there was a positive association between teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education. Among their works, Weisel and Dror (2006) conducted their studies on Israeli teachers and put forward their findings that Israeli teachers’ teaching-efficacy was found to be a strong factor that affected their attitudes towards inclusive education. Similarly, Dutch teachers who had strong sense of efficacy would regard their students with special needs as less problematic for them (Meijer

& Foster, 1988). The most recent study that utilised the SACIE-R and TEIP was conducted by

Malinen, Savolainen and Xu (2012), suggested that teacher’s teaching-efficacy was one of the strong predictors of their attitudes towards inclusive education. All these studies strongly indicate a strong evidence to suggest that there is a positive relationship between teachers’ sense of efficacy and their attitude towards inclusive education.

2.3.4 Variables influencing teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy

According to Avaramidis and Norwich (2002), even though some teachers may concur with the importance of inclusive education, they may not necessarily agree on total inclusion. Rather, their views towards inclusive education are very much dependent on how their attitudes and teaching-efficacy could be influenced by various factors. These factors can be broadly classified into three categories: child-related variables, teacher-related variables and environment-related variables.

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Child-related variables

A typical example of child-related variables often points to the severity and type of disability that the child has. Many studies were carried out to determine teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards different kinds of disabilities the students had and how the different types of disabilities affected their perception about their suitability of inclusion in the regular classroom

(Clough & Lindsay, 1991; Forlin, 1995; Hanko, 2003; Moberg & Savolainen, 2003; Yuen &

Westwood, 2001).

A study found that 62% of regular school teachers did not support inclusion of students with special needs in their classrooms. It resulted in creating a detrimental effect on the learning process of other students (Monahan, Marino & Miller, 1996). This finding was consistent with other study conducted by Horne and Timmons (2009). Furthermore, Lohrmann and Bambara (2006) found that many teachers were uncertain of themselves to strike a balance between the disabled students’ special needs and other students. Some teachers were concerned that educating students with special needs would require substantial amount of time and effort that could rob them of their quality time spent with other students (Ammah & Hodge, 2005).

Severity of disability

An exhaustive study for UNESCO conducted by Bowman (1989) showed that regular school teachers favoured inclusion of students in their classrooms depending on the nature and severity of their disabilities. Based on the survey it was found that students with medical issues (75.5%) were the most preferred group to be included in the classroom and were perceived to be the least severe. It was followed by students with physical difficulties (63.0%). 50% of teachers agreed that students with certain learning disability and speech impediments were suitable for classroom inclusion.

One-third of them supported the inclusion of students with moderate learning disabilities and emotional and behavioural difficulties in the regular classrooms. As for the group of students with sensory impairments (visually- and hearing- impairment), 25% of them felt that they were suitable for inclusion and the rest of teachers supported the inclusion of several mental retardation (2.5%) and multiple disabilities (7.5%). It boiled down to the severity of the sensory impairments that

LITERATURE REVIEW affected their perceptions towards them; students with mild hearing loss and ability to carry out normal conversation received positive attitudes from teachers while those students with profound hearing loss and limited means of normal conversation were more likely to be preferred to be taught in the special schools. Severity of disability is found to be inversely related to their perceptions towards students with special needs.

Types of disability

Based on these general concerns highlighted by teachers, other studies investigated the teachers’ attitudes towards the students with specific kinds of disabilities and the section discusses on specific types of disabilities. a) Students with intellectual or learning disabilities

In Western Australia study conducted by Forlin (1995), it was found that 273 teachers had their negative perceptions about inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities. 86% of teachers felt that children with mild intellectual disability should be included part-time into the regular classrooms and only 1% of them supported the full-placement of intellectual disability. They felt that it caused stress for them to teach children with intellectual disabilities full-time instead of partial inclusion. Another study conducted in Sweden by Roll-Peterson (2008) suggested that teachers were also unwilling to include student with mild intellectual disability and learning disability e.g. dyslexia. b) Students with physical disability

A study conducted by Alghazo and Gaad (2004) revealed that teachers were more positive to accept students with physical disability for inclusion in the regular classrooms than students with other disabilities such as hearing impairment, behavioural problems and intellectual disability.

According to the study carried out by Forlin (1995), teachers were more willing to include students with physical disabilities and high cognitive abilities; 95% of them supported the partial inclusion/integration of mild physically disabled children into regular classrooms and 6% of them advocated for full-inclusion of children with severe physical disability. However, in Zambia, the teachers expressed their reluctance to include students with physical disabilities in the regular

LITERATURE REVIEW schools as in the rural Zambia, they felt it was tough for students with physical disabilities who had to travel over a long and arduous journey to reach the nearest schools (Moberg & Savolainen, 2003). c) Students with sensory impairments

In the literature review by Avramidis and Norwich (2002), they found that many teachers supported the inclusion of students with physical and sensory impairments in Europe, the United

States and Australia. The results of the study by these disability scholars i.e. Glaubman and Lifshitz

(2001) and Lifshitz, Glaubman and Issawi (2004), revealed that teachers showed their most willingness for the inclusion of students with sensory impairments. On the other hand, some studies showed that teachers held their negative attitudes and efficacies towards visually impaired students and hearing impaired students (Alghazo & Gaad, 2004; Freire & César, 2003). Ward, Center and

Bochner (1994) found that teachers rejected the inclusion of students with profound sensory disabilities as they were deemed to be too challenging to be taught as a group in the class. d) Students with emotional/behavioural disorders

Clough and Lindsay (1991) conducted their surveys to rank the challenges of including students with different types of disabilities; they found that the children with emotional and behavioural difficulties were the most challenging to be included followed by children with learning difficulties. This finding about rejection of inclusion of students with emotional and behavioural disorders was found to be consistent with other studies conducted by Cook and Cameron (2010), and

Cook, Tankersley, Cook and Landrum (2000). The reasons cited for against the inclusion of students with behavioural and emotional issue attributed to difficulty in managing their behaviours which often involved violence that caused injury to other students, uncooperative acts to complete their homework, inappropriate verbal language and disruption to the teaching (Lohrmann & Bambara,

2006). Specifically, within recent years, there was an increase in number of studies on teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) due to better medical diagnosis. Avrimadis and Norwich (2002) conducted their study on ADHD students and found that the majority of teachers held the most negative attitudes towards students with ADHD. Ghanizadeh, Bahredar and Moeini, (2006) found that 78% of

LITERATURE REVIEW teachers supported the placement of student with ADHD in the special classes that were separated from the regular classes. Contrary to the popular negative beliefs about ADHD and students with emotional issues, Salvia and Munson (1986) made their surprising discovery that teachers actually favoured the inclusion of students with severe emotional and behavioural problems over those with sensory impairments.

Teacher-related variables

Numerous researches concerning the teachers’ characteristics that manifest in specific teacher variables e.g. gender, age, years of teaching experience, contact experience with persons with disability and other teacher-related demographic factors, were conducted to determine the relationship between teacher-related variables and perceptions towards students with special needs.

Teacher-related variables are discussed below:

Gender

Many studies reported that female teachers in general were more positive towards the inclusive education than their male teachers as they were more patient and caring towards students with special needs (Forlin, Loreman, Sharma & Earle, 2009; Romi & Leyser, 2006; Tait & Purdie,

2000). Few studies noted that male teachers actually had more positive attitudes towards inclusive education than the female counterparts depending on the country cultural contexts. According to the study conducted in Bangladesh by Ahsan, Sharma, & Deppeler (2012), they found that male teachers especially in Bangladesh and South Asian countries were more likely to have higher sense of teaching-efficacy than the female teachers because of the negative effects of gender bias and discrimination that were prevalent in these countries. Also, there are some findings that showed that there was no significant impact on their attitudes and self-efficacy towards inclusive education

(Carroll, Forlin, & Jobling, 2003; Harvey, 1985).

Grade Level

Several studies found that grade level (secondary vs primary school level) could determine the attitude and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs. Studies in

Australia (Woodcock, 2011) and Mexico (Forlin et al., 2010) found that primary school teachers

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Salvia and Munson (1986), and Stephens and Braun (1980) also reported that primary school teachers tended to be more accommodating towards students with special needs. They observed that the teacher attitudes and self-efficacy declined as the children became older and the older teachers were more concerned about their academic performance instead of their well-beings. On the other hand, Leyser, Kapperman and Keller (1994) discovered that junior high school (or secondary) teachers showed more positive attitudes than primary school teachers. It could be attributed to the reason that secondary school teachers are more teacher-centred and they probably provided lesser student-centred instructions as compared to primary school teachers. Therefore, it led to more secondary school teachers having positive attitude and better confidence of how best they could manage the classroom including students with special needs (Cole & McLeskey, 1997).

Special needs education training

There is an increasing emphasis on the importance of training pertaining to the students with the special needs and how the training could influence the teachers’ perception towards inclusive education. Training allows teacher to accumulate knowledge about children with special needs through various channels e.g. formal studies during pre- and in-service training, self-reading and other informal methods. Avramidis and Norwich (2002) pointed out that without any concrete plan for teacher training would stymie any teacher’s attempts to include students in the mainstream classrooms.

Based on the comparative case studies in 6 nations (US, Germany, Israel, Ghana, Taiwan and the Philippines) Leyser, Kapperman and Keller (1994) found that with the trainings on disability needs could improve their attitude and sense of efficacy towards the individuals with special needs.

It was similar to another study in UK where both primary and secondary teachers had more significantly positive attitudes after receiving their trainings in special needs education (Avramidis,

Bayliss & Burden, 2000).

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Teacher Age and Years of teaching experience

There were some studies that supported the view that younger teachers were more open towards inclusive education and willing to include students with special needs in the regular classrooms than the older teachers (Avramidis & Norwich, 2002; Tait & Purdie, 2000; Weisel &

Dror, 2006). There are also other studies that show that there is no significant impact of age on their attitudes and teaching efficacy towards inclusive education (Carroll et al., 2003; Forlin et al., 2009).

A study conducted by Center and Ward (1987) in Australia to investigate the years of teaching experience on attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusion revealed that teachers with little teaching experience (0-2 years) showed more positive results than the more experienced teachers. According to the study conducted by Forlin (1995), the acceptance of student with a physical disability was found to peak among those teachers with less than 6 years of teaching experience and it gradually declined with years of teaching experiences. The most experienced teachers with more than 10 years of teaching experience were found to be the most unaccommodating towards students with special needs. Another cross-cultural study by Leyser et al.

(1994) suggested that those teachers who taught less than 10 years were more open-minded towards inclusion than those who taught more than 14 years..

Prior contact experience with students with special needs

Numerous studies found that relevant prior contact experience with students with special needs could play its important role to shape teachers’ attitudes and efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs (Alquraini, 2012; Avramidis & Kalyva, 2007; Kalyva, Gojkovic &

Tsakiris, 2007; Leyser et al., 1994; Van Reusen, Shoho & Barker, 2000). Based on the country case studies conducted in Australia (Carroll et al., 2003), Israel (Romi & Leyser, 2006), USA (Kim, 2011),

Mexico (Forlin et al., 2010), Serbia (Kalyva et al., 2007), and Cyprus and Greece (Batsiou et al.,

2008), pre-service teachers who had their prior contact and teaching experience with students with special needs, showed their positive attitude and teaching-efficacy towards inclusion. However, there are other studies that does not show any positive impact on their attitudes and teaching-efficacy; according to Forlin and Chambers (2011), their findings from 67 Western Australia pre-service

LITERATURE REVIEW teachers did not necessarily support the inclusive settings even though they had the most interaction opportunities with children with special needs as compared to other group which had limited or no contact with children with special needs. At the same time, another studies also suggested that contact experience with individuals with special needs did not translate into positive attitude or high efficacy for teachers (Hayashi & May, 2011; Shannon, Tansey, & Schoen, 2009).

Environment-related variables

Avramidis et al. (2000) identified that the level, type and nature of resource support predicted the teachers’ attitudes and efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools. According to Janney, Snell, Beers and Raynes (1995), the majority of educators was reluctant to accept children with special needs if there was no support mechanism in place as they felt that without any support, children with special needs would be forced to fend for themselves, thus falling behind their classes. There are two main types of support rendered for the class teaching: physical and human.

Physical Support

The availability of physical support for example disabled-friendly infrastructure, which could be in the form of ramps, elevators, text enlargement print and Braille support system, was essential to increase teachers’ sense of efficacy and positive attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms (Avramidis & Norwich, 2002; Janney et al., 1995). Besides the physical form of support, it also included the availability of adapted teaching materials (Center &

Ward, 1987; LeRoy & Simpson, 1996) and smaller class size (Irene Bowman, 1986; Center & Ward,

1987; Clough & Lindsay, 1991; Harvey, 1985).

Human Support

There are two main kinds of human support for the students with special needs: a) support from school leaders; b) support from specialists. The school leadership role involved several important roles in ensuring the success of inclusion; school leaders provided administrative support for teacher initiatives and inclusion programmes (Horne & Timmons, 2009), provided conducive climate for teachers and students (Blecker & Boakes, 2010), recruited and retained right staff who

LITERATURE REVIEW were supportive of inclusion (Kugelmass, 2001) and monitored the progress and impact of inclusive education initiatives (Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, 2006). According to Janney et al.

(1995)’s study, full support from school leaders was found to be an important factor in strengthening teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards students with special needs. Another study conducted by Center and Ward (1987), with supports given from their school leaders, teachers showed more positive attitude and efficacy than those with no support from their bosses. Clough and

Lindsay (1991) claimed that support from specialists e.g. sign language interpreter, allied educators

(in the case of Singapore) could positively influence teachers’ attitudes and efficacy towards children with special needs. In their study, if the support or resource teachers were present, the regular school teachers would not feel anxious or concerned about teaching students with special needs as they could be assured that their children would not fend for themselves on their own. The important feature manifests itself in the presence of effective utilisation of existing and right resources to manage the seamless inclusion of students with special needs in the regular school (Swart &

Pettipher, 2005).

2.4 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.4.1 Theory of Planned Behaviour

Ajzen (1991) postulated his Theory of Planned Behaviour in the field of social psychology to understand how individuals made their informed decisions whether to engage in a particular behaviour and to predict human behaviours in different contexts. It helps us understand how actors’ attitudes are created based on the impact of different background factors and is widely applied in various disciplines ranging from medical to education (Ajzen, 2011). Originally, this theory was the extension of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) which postulated how person’s salient behaviour was determined by his/her intentions to perform behaviour and then this intention became a function of his/her attitudes towards the behaviour and his/her subjective norm (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010b).

Behaviour intention is a function of two important determinants: personal characteristics and social influence. The personal characteristic is based on an actor’s own assessment and evaluation of one’s

LITERATURE REVIEW behaviour, in other words, attitudes towards the behaviour. The other determinant deals with the actor’s perception of the social pressures that are imposed on him to execute certain actions (Ajzen,

1985). Summing up, behavioural intentions determine how much the effort the individual is willing to carry out his particular behaviour. Specifically, TRA predicts that human behavioural intention is determined by two key factors: attitudes and subjective norms. Therefore, strong intentions (or one’s desires) one has, would determine the high likelihood that the particular behaviour will occur (Ajzen,

1991) for example, an intention to find out what two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and

Senator Hillary Clinton were debating with each other would influence the viewers to tune in the evening news show and vote for the candidate of their choices in the presidential election. The illustration of model can be described explicitly below in Figure 2-11.

Figure 2-11: Theory of Reasoned Action

Beliefs that the behaviour can predict outcome Attitude towards behaviour Personal evaluation of outcomes Intention Behaviour

Normative belief about the behaviour Subjective Norms

Motivation to comply with specific norms

Source: Adapted from Ajzen & Fishbein (1980)

However, the TRA does not include the case which individual actors have no volitional control over their actions. On the premise of TRA, it is assumed that the behaviours examined in this model are under total volitional control. In order to account for certain sets of behaviours which may

LITERATURE REVIEW not be necessarily under total voluntary control, perceived behavioural control is added to TRA to expand further to form a new theory known as Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). Therefore, TPB finally incorporates three main factors: a) Attitude towards behaviours; b) Subjective Norm; and c)

Perceived Behavioural Control that would contribute to the behavioural intention which is posited to be the main predictor of behaviour.

In the new model TPB, perceived behavioural control refers to how much the individual could manage one’s control over his or her behaviour and it is often known as efficacy beliefs (Ajzen,

2002). Ostensibly, the common view about the perceived behavioural control is often found to be compatible with Bandura’s concept of efficacy. The concept of efficacy refers to “judgement of how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations” (Bandura, 1982; pg. 122). Perceived behavioural control is surmised to be influenced by certain set of control beliefs about the presence or absence of necessary skills, qualifications, resources and environmental factors

(Ajzen, 2005). According to several researches, it is shown that actors’ behaviours are strongly predicted by their degree of self-confidence in their ability to perform it. For instance, two individuals have their equally strong intentions to learn how to dive and both of them attempt to dive.

One of them has his confidence to dive as he thinks that he is a strong swimmer and he is able to dive confidently as compared to other who lacks of confidence to dive due to his inability to swim.

Attitudes and subjective norms have been briefly discussed; attitudes towards certain behaviours refer to their own evaluation of their performances of their particular behaviours. That is to say that how positive or negative the actors perceive their attitude towards the performance of the behaviour. Attitudes are created based on different types of beliefs which are known as behavioural beliefs and they affect one’s perceptions towards the outcomes and repercussion of the behaviour

(Ajzen, 1991). Hayden (2009) reported in his findings that if the consequences of one’s actions were positive, desirable and advantageous, then the actor’s attitude would be positive, therefore increasing its livelihood to engage in this particular behaviour (Hayden, 2009).

Subjective norms are defined as “the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behaviour” (Ajzen, 1991; pg. 188). They also include one’s normative beliefs which refer to

LITERATURE REVIEW surrounding people’s views or opinion (approval or disapproval) of a particular behaviour and one’s willingness to accept or reject the surrounding people’s views. For example, let’s say we want to watch the Japanese anime Doraemon but our friends think that it is childish and uncool to watch this kind of show. This social norm may prevent us from tuning in to watch Doraemon as we are led into conforming to the social norms that watching Doraemon is childish. The strong normative beliefs about executing this particular behaviour, the stronger subjective norm will encourage the stronger intention to carry out the behaviour (Ajzen, 1991).

Evidently, “the more favourable the attitude and subjective norm and the greater the perceived behavioural control, the stronger should be the person’s intention to perform the behaviour in question” (Ajzen & Cote, 2008; pg. 301).

Figure 2-12: Theory of Planned Behaviour

Beliefs that the behaviour can predict outcome Attitude towards behaviours Personal evaluation of outcomes

Normative belief about the Subjective behaviour Intention Behaviour Norms Motivation to comply with specific norms

Control Beliefs Perceived Behavioural Self-efficacy Control

Source: Adapted from Ajzen (1991). The question is how this theory could be applied in this context of inclusive education and how it explains the teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular school. According to Ajzen (2005), there were several background variables that influenced

LITERATURE REVIEW the three main components. They would predict the intention of the actor to perform this particular behavioural action. The background factors were grouped under three main areas: “Personal (general attitudes, personality traits, values, emotions, and intelligence), Social (age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, religion) and Information (experience, knowledge, media exposure)” (Ajzen, 2005; pg.

135). Randoll (2008) proposed that by applying this model to predict and explain teachers’ attitudes, all three main components could be effectively examined.

2.4.2 Theory of Self-Efficacy

The concept of self-efficacy was developed by Albert Bandura in 1977 as a core component of his larger Social Learning Theory which transformed into the Social Cognitive Theory

(Levin, Culkin & Perrotto, 2001). People discovered significances from their experiences, evaluated their self-beliefs and engaged in their own personal evaluation of whether they should or should not change their thinking and behaviour. It can be aptly defined as “people’s judgements of their capabilities to organise and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances” (Bandura, 1986; pg. 391).

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) posits how cognitive, behavioural, personal and environmental factors work together to influence one’s sense of motivation and behaviour and is consisted of four main process of goal realisation: 1) self-observation, self-evaluation, self-reaction and self-efficacy (Redmond, 2010). It also states that the interpretation of efficacy sources is influenced by various factors: global self-beliefs, contextual factors, perceptions towards efforts, one’s capability of self-monitoring and self-perception of our self-developments over the period of time (Bandura, 1986). Central to this theory, efficacy is based on two fundamental features: outcome expectation and efficacy expectation (Bandura, 1977). Actors’ actions are mainly influenced by how much confidence they have in the expected outcome and their ability to perform their behaviour

(Soodak & Podell, 1996). Bandura also cautioned the difference between efficacy and outcome expectation; an outcome expectation refers to “a person’s estimate that a given behaviour will lead to certain outcomes. An efficacy expectation is the conviction that one can successfully execute the behaviour required to produce the outcomes” (Bandura, 1977; pg. 193). The difference between two

LITERATURE REVIEW different expectations can be represented diagrammatically below. A person has his belief that certain behaviour can produce a desired outcome but if he/she does not have any confidence in his/her ability to perform this particular behaviour, outcome expectancy will not influence his behaviour (Bandura, 1977).

Figure 2-13: Representation of difference between efficacy and outcome expectation

Person Behaviour Outcome

Efficacy Outcome

Expectation Expectation

Source: Adapted from Bandura (1977).

The evaluation of sense of efficacy possessed by the actors varies based on three main dimensions: a) magnitude, b) strength and c) generality (Bandura, 1977). Magnitude focuses on whether he or she could complete the task. People with low degree of efficacy would probably think that they are able to complete easy task while those with higher degree of efficacy would challenge themselves to tackle complicated tasks. Strength reflects an individual’s confidence to complete various parts of tasks or at varying levels of difficulty. Students with stronger efficacy would find themselves willing to attempt advanced mathematics calculus while those students with weaker efficacy are confident to take basic mathematics. Finally, generality refers to the extent to which self-efficacy for a particular task can be generalized to other tasks or across other situations. For example, students’ beliefs in their writing abilities will differ in generality across the spectrum of writing e.g. poetry writing, expository writing or even simple letter writing (Pajares, 2003).

Finally, Bandura (1977) also outlined the four main sources of information that the actors could employ to evaluate their sense of efficacy for particular tasks: mastery experience

(performance accomplishment), vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and physiological feedback.

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These components help the individuals to evaluate whether they have the confidence to accomplish certain tasks with their given abilities. Bandura (1982) found that the mastery experiences were the most powerful predicator of efficacy in individuals. Positive and negative experience influence the ability of the individual to carry out their tasks; if he or she has previously performed well in his/her particular tasks, he or she is more likely to feel more competent and confident to perform well at the similar tasks. Therefore successful performances at particular task serve as a positive example for the individual to enhance the sense of efficacy to perform well. Conversely, poor performances would weaken one’s efficacy and affects the individual’s perception towards certain tasks. Bandura (1977; pg. 80) quoted:

“Enactive mastery experiences are the most influential source of efficacy information because they provide the most authentic evidence of whether one can muster whatever it takes to succeed. Succeed builds a robust belief in one’s personal efficacy. Failure undermines it, especially if failures occur before a sense of efficacy is firmly established”.

Individuals can develop strong or weak sense of efficacy vicariously through other people’s performances at particular tasks. According to Bandura and Barab (1973; pg. 1), by “observing others perform imitating responses without adverse consequences can reduce fears and inhibitions” and therefore it helps to enhance one’s efficacy to perform well at the similar tasks. For example, one could attain confidence to reduce one’s weight if he or she witnesses his/her friends who successfully completed their fat-loss programme.

A third way to develop the sense of efficacy is through verbal persuasion which is in the form of encouragement or discouragement in relation to one’s ability to perform given tasks.

Through other people’s suggestion or criticism, individuals tend to be influenced to believe whether they are capable to perform a particular task.

Lastly, physiological feedback develops efficacy to perform tasks when one could experience his/her emotional arousals from his/her body. For example giving a speech in front of large audience would probably plant the seed of apprehension in the shy speaker while motivational speaker could feel a sense of euphoria after delivering his electrifying speech to his large audience.

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Figure 2-14: Efficacy judgement

Mastery Experiences

Physiological Efficacy Vicarious Feebdack Experiences

Verbal Persuasion

Source: Adapted from Bandura (1977), modified by author.

2.4.3 Conceptual Framework

This conceptual framework presented in this PhD dissertation is based on the two theories which have been discussed earlier: Theory of Planned Behaviours and Theory of Self-Efficacy to further understand Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusive education and inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools in both countries.

Using Bandura’s Theory of Self-Efficacy as one of the theoretical models aims to provide a fundamental understanding of what the conditions could influence the teachers’ teaching-efficacy towards inclusive class practices. As discussed earlier, the theory proposes that high efficacious individuals tend to approach their challenging tasks objectively, identifying ways to tackle them while the lesser efficacious individuals would avoid these challenges (Bandura, 1994). Based on this theory, it is plausible to assume that if Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers would have high sense of teaching-efficacy if there are any favourable conditions that facilitate their inclusion of students with special needs in their regular classrooms as discussed under the section ‘Variables influencing teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy’.

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Likewise for the Theory of Planned Behaviour, this theory assesses teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms as well as the variables that affect their attitudes. It is also assumed that if the outcomes of including students with special needs in the regular classroom turn out to be positive, favourable and advantageous for all the students with the right conditions in place, then the teachers’ attitudes will be positive. If the teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education, in general, turn out to be positive, it is more likely for them to develop their intention to carry out their behaviour in question (Ajzen, 1991). Further, it is also found that individual’s attitudes can be influenced by their teaching-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1977).

Based on this, it is anticipated that teachers with high sense of teaching-efficacy that concerns with their ability to relate to their students with special needs are more positive in accommodating their students with special needs in their regular classrooms. Conversely, less efficacious teachers who do not have their strong efficacy beliefs about their abilities would be likely to adopt their negative attitudes towards their students.

Considering the research objectives of this research and relevant literature reviews, application of the dualistic nature of Theory of Self-Efficacy and Theory of Planned Behaviour

(Ajzen, 1985) serves as a conceptual framework to further understand the individuals’ perspectives towards inclusive education in Japan and Singapore.

2.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Arising from the research objectives discussed in the first chapter, I revisit and restate more specific main research questions and it is discussed in the following page.

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Research Question #1 – Teaching-efficacy

1.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ perceived teaching efficacy towards inclusion of

students with special needs in two countries?

1.2: Is there any significant relationship between teaching efficacy and child-related, teacher-related

and environment-related factors?

1.3: How do selected factors from Question 1.2 explain their teaching efficacy towards the inclusion

of students with special needs?

Research Question #2 - Attitudes 2.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special

needs in two countries?

2.2: Is there any significant relationship between teacher’s attitudes and child-related, teacher-related

and environment-related factors?

2.3: How do selected factors from Question 2.2 explain their attitudes towards the inclusion of

students with special needs?

Research Question #3 – Relationships between teaching-efficacy and attitudes 3.1: How does their teaching-efficacy correlate with their attitudes towards the inclusion of students

with special needs?

3.2: Which type of teaching-efficacy is the best predicator of teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive

education?

Research Question #4 – Challenges and strategies in inclusive education 4.1: What are the challenges they face including students with special needs in their inclusive

classrooms?

4.2: How do they strategize to address their challenges in implementing inclusive class practices?

Both quantitative and qualitative approaches will be used to collect and analyse these primary data to seek to answer these following research questions and these research methodological approaches are discussed in the following Chapter 3.

LITERATURE REVIEW

SUMMARY

The literature reviews on inclusive education are discussed as the scholarly content that traces the trajectory from the history and development of special needs education to the rise of inclusive education in the era of modernity. Next, it also intends to dismantle the misconceptions about the East-West dichotomy of inclusive education. Various examples of differences between

East-West ideologies intend to illustrate that true concept of inclusion education are difficult to be replicated in the East given their different socio-cultural milieus.

Through the lens of literature reviews being reviewed, the recurring theme points to the basic question: what do we mean by inclusion and how do we define the teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy. Also, discussion on how child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables influence teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy is provided.

Lastly, deep understanding of human behaviours in terms of teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy for inclusive practices demands rhetorical analysis of how different theories came into existences from different circumstances and how the author could employ these theoretical tools to explain the phenomena in his research.

The next chapter will discuss the research methodologies which detail different kinds of research tools for my research and how these tools can be executed to investigate Japanese and

Singaporean in-service teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs. It also discusses the data analysis on the quantitative and qualitative data to answer the research questions effectively.

CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims to provide an overview of research methodology in this research study. It provides in-depth literature reviews ranging from separate domains exclusively occupied by quantitative and qualitative methodologies to dual combination of both methodologies which are commonly known as mixed methods approach. It also outlines the two contrasting perspectives towards qualitative and quantitative methods i.e. positivism versus constructivism before discussing my rationales and justification for adoption of a mixed methods approach for my two country case studies in Japan and Singapore.

Before delving into the academic study on research methodologies, this chapter discusses how the methodology could be carried out to answer the research questions and describes how the preliminary and actual researches became materialized over the period of time. It also describes various kinds of collection methods, followed by procedures that involve translation, and pilot testing of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with selected pools of teachers. Next, ethical procedures are formally discussed to ensure that information collected from the subjects is kept strictly confidential and to protect the identity of the informants.

In his own words of Creswell (2002: pg 8), an educational research is defined as “a cyclical process of steps that typically begins with identifying a research problem or issue of study. It then involves reviewing the literature, specifying a purpose for the study, collecting and analyzing data, and forming an interpretation of the information. The process culminates in a report, disseminated to audiences that is evaluated and used in the educational community”. Creswell (2002) also pointed out that the educational research was necessary to improve research practice, increase the repository knowledge, address gaps in knowledge and reflect community actors’ unique voices.

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3.2 RESEARCH AIMS

This research investigates Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms through country case-study analysis. Data were collected through the mixture of quantitative and qualitative researches on Singaporean and Japanese primary and secondary mainstream school teachers at selected mainstream primary and secondary schools.

3.3 RESEARCH DESIGN

Research methodologies in education field (and other social sciences) are traditionally divided into two main methods: quantitative and qualitative methods. While applying the mixed methods, case studies are intended to be utilised in this naturalistic inquiry to enhance better understanding of the dynamics of relationships (Becker et al., 2005). Its intention is not to alter the flow of social interaction unnaturally and to develop certain degree of intimacy that involves sharing and judgement of information shared by the participants (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002) in various settings (Eisenhardt, 1989). According to Eisenhardt (1989), case studies could either employ quantitative or qualitative methods but depending on the complexity of the data, this case study can combine various data collection methods e.g. archives, participant observations, surveys, field works and interviews. Hence, this research could potentially provide a more holistic and comprehensive picture of these country case studies through the combination of qualitative and quantitative data

(Erickson, 1986) to give us a better understanding of how Singaporean and Japanese in-service mainstream teachers can respond to the inclusion of students with special needs in their regular classrooms in the actual classroom settings.

Detailed academic treatments about qualitative and quantitative researches provide a broad overview of quantitative and qualitative methods before a succeeding section on mixed method is discussed. It is important to understand that “there is no such thing as research in the absence of a paradigm” (Kuhn, 1970; pg. 70). As such, in this context, Johnson and Christensen (2008) defined

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY the research paradigm as a perspective based on the sets of assumptions, concepts and values that were propounded by a community of researchers. From the 1960s, it was often referred to thought pattern in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context. Another researcher, Barron,

(2006) provided a similar definition of research paradigm; it was a cluster of beliefs that determined what kind of researches should be undertaken, in what manners research should be conducted and how the research results should be interpreted.

3.3.1 Quantitative methodologies A quantitative research is built on the assumption that the reality is independent of personal views and social contexts and is relatively constant across time and settings (Gall, Gall & Borg,

2007). It calls for the mathematical models, statistical tables and graphs to illustrate the causal relationships among variables and to test the validity of tests. This below definition (Aliaga &

Gunderson, 2000) captured neatly the core meaning of quantitative method.

“Explaining phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analyzed using mathematically based methods (in particular statistics)” We need to employ mathematically based methods to explain the phenomenon, which is different from qualitative research. For example, Muijs (2005) published a book titled “Doing

Quantitative Research in Education with SPSS and he raised several scenarios of using quantitative methods for education-related researches.

Muijis (2005; pg. 2) quoted: “designing research instruments [that] aimed specifically at converting phenomena that don’t naturally exist in quantitative form into quantitative data, which we can analyse statistically” and cited a few examples e.g. teachers’ attitudes and beliefs which are not obviously expressed in quantitative form and yet questionnaires could be developed to ask respondents to rate predefined statements which can provide us with quantitative data. For instance, for certain statements, “I think there is no meaning to attend school” which evokes several possible responses: ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ which are expressed in the

Likert-type scale ratings ranging from 1 to 4. This simple example explains how we could convert certain phenomena into ‘quantitiatized’ variables in this study. In particular, in the fields of social science or education, quantitative methodologies are frequently utilised to answer the research

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY questions until the late 20th century before the qualitative research became widely accepted. The foundations of quantitative research methods were often and historically linked to the concept of realism or positivism (Ary, Jacobs, Razavieh & Sorensen, 2009; Muijs, 2011; Robson, 2011; Teddlie

& Tashakkori, 2009). Realism or positivism is defined as what the research is trying to uncover an existing reality i.e. “The answer or truth is out there”. It also points to how the world works according to the predefined laws of cause and effect. Positivism necessitates the researchers to be objective and detached from the research (Denzin & Lincoln, 1999) and employs scientific methods to test certain theories or to either accept or reject hypothesis (Muijs, 2005). Positivism also asserts that the knowledge can be acquired through one’s experiences or observation of the research subjects

(Wellington, 2000).

Many researchers argue on the merits and demerits of using quantitative research. The benefits of using quantitative research in this study are the study can be mobilized on the larger scale to the target population within the shorter timeframe. The data obtained from a representative sample of target population can be assumed to represent the entire target population (Robson, 2011).

However, there are some drawbacks from using quantitative research; the quantitative findings may not yield richer descriptions of certain topics being studied (Lawrence, 2004) or to fail to further understand the concrete or subjective reasons behind this particular social phenomenon (Johnson &

Onwuegbuzie, 2004).

3.3.2 Qualitative methodologies In the beginning of 1980s, the qualitative paradigm began to be accepted as one of the alternative methods to quantitative methodology; it was often considered to differ significantly from quantitative research and was widely associated with subjectivism or constructivism (Johnson &

Christensen, 2008; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). Central to qualitative research is the discovery and comprehension of actors’ or participants’ experiences, perspectives and thoughts. It simply explores the meaning, purpose or reality which is not directly addressed through quantitative methods. Denzin and Lincoln (2005, pg. 3) provided an apt and generic definition of qualitative method:

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“Qualitative is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that makes the world visible. These practices transform the world. They turn the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self. ” Unlike the quantitative researchers who actually seek the answer or truth which is actually out there, qualitative researchers adopt the naturalistic and interpretive approach to seek the truth as being “socially constructed by us and by our observations” (Muijs, 2005, pg. 4). It involves the research of things in their natural settings, trying to derive the meaning from these phenomena in terms of the meanings participants have attached to (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). The researchers need to understand the society as what the social actors perceive and interpret it from their unique vantage points, for example, why and how these social actors behave in the way that they do in response to the particular phenomena. Based on that, these interpretations of society itself could vary differently among themselves. It recognizes that the subjectivism guides the researchers from one’s choice of research interest to collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of narrative data.

Subjectivism is often regarded as the sine qua non of qualitative research, which does not require any pre-existing objectives and requires researchers to rely on generation of one’s hypotheses and grounded theory from data collected. Many critics of quantitative research critiqued that the employment of pure positivism was insufficient to fully “explore perspectives and shred meanings and to develop insights into situations e.g. schools, classrooms” (Wellington, 2000, pg. 16). On the other hand, this subjectivism approach permits the qualitative researchers to conduct participant observations, unstructured/semi-structured interviews, focus groups, case studies, ethnographic research and discourse analysis in order to gain better insights of particular situations (Barron, 2006).

Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) argued that this qualitative research was able to provide its richer description of social phenomena in their natural settings. Further, it attuned readily to the needs of local situations, conditions and constituents. However, the main downside of this research was the time and this explained the reasons why many researchers preferred to opt for quantitative research which was much less time-consuming (Potter, 1996) and qualitative research was unable to profile the general population accurately with fewer cases (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004).

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3.3.3 Mixed methods research It is evident that both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies have their unique strengths and weaknesses; it boils down to the key question of how we can capitalize on these strengths of these research methodologies. In the recent years, increasing number of researchers are relying on the combination of research methodologies in the same study which is commonly known as mixed methods research which allows to ostensibly bridge their shortcomings, draw on their strengths and offset inevitable method biases to answer research questions (Caracelli & Greene,

1997; Harwell, 2011; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). The origins of mixed methods research were traced back as far as 1960s although it was widely acknowledged a relatively newcomer to research inquiry. According to Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004), they said:

“Mixed methods research is formally defined here as the class of research where the researcher mixes or combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods, approaches, concepts or languages into a single study. Mixed methods research is an attempt to legitimate the use of multiple approaches in answering research questions, rather than restricting or constraining researchers’ choices (i.e., it rejects dogmatism)…it is inclusive, pluralistic and complementary, and it suggests that researchers take an eclectic approach to method selection and thinking and conduct of research ” (pg. 17-18).

There are three possible ways of carrying mixed methods study: (1) carrying out both research methods concurrently i.e. to conduct both of them simultaneously (Creswell & Clark,

2011); (2) conducting separate quantitative research method for one phase of a research and qualitative method for another stage (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2009); and (3) carrying out both researches sequentially i.e. data from quantitative research will be collected first before the next qualitative method (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004).

According to Caracelli and Greene (1997), the main functions of mixed method research deepened conceptual understanding of the social phenomenon and they had already identified three uses: (1) to verify the findings obtained from different measurement instruments; (2) to draw the result of one method and apply it for the next method; (3) to demonstrate how the results from a particular method could influence the next method. This mixed methods researches are widely utilized in myriads fields including education, psychology, and business.

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Unlike the earlier precedents which espouse the positivism and constructivism in quantitative and qualitative researchers, this mixed method research is often associated with pragmatism which emerges due to the ‘paradigm wars’ of the 1970s and 1980s where positivist paradigm of quantitative research was profusely disregarded by social scientists who advocated the use of constructivism as a viable alternative (Reichardt & Rallis, 1994). It, then, arises from this disagreement by research purists over usage of two mutually exclusive research methods as a new third research movement to

“make use of pragmatic method and system of philosophy” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; pg. 17).

Based on this new pragmatic concept, the researchers can focus on their research questions rather than their different methods being applied. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) argued that the research questions should dictate what kind of methods should be employed in order to address the research questions adequately.

Despite the popularity attached to mixed methods research, there are some confusions of how to utilize certain aspects of mixed methods research for this research for example at what point of researches the mixing of both research methods is allowed i.e. during data collection, or data analysis (Tashakkori, 2009). In some case, some purists attacked the mixed methods research as either of research methodology could be secondary to the other one i.e. qualitative research method could be considered as secondary or inferior to quantitative rather than being on an equal footing with each other (Yin, 2006).

3.3.4 Rationales for mixed methods In this research, mixed methods are utilized to seek more comprehensive answers to the research questions. Based on the previous literature reviews that discuss the merits and demerits of mixed methods research (De Vaus 2002), many of them cited the reason as complementarity which employed the results of one research method to further clarify and justify the results of another

(Greene, 2007).

The quantitative research permitted me to distribute the questionnaires to the larger subjects and based on the sample findings, these findings could be generalized to the population findings.

Then using the quantitative data, I utilized the qualitative research methods to find out “WHY” this

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY cause has already developed and “HOW” this factor could affect the other factors. These two key reasons are found to be consistent with the reason that explains the complementarity of mixed methods to support certain quantitative findings with in-depth qualitative answers. Therefore, the importance of qualitative study in this mixed methods could provide better understanding of

“wholeness” of particular class within its context (De Vaus 2002). Summing up, the present study intends to use questionnaire approach first to elicit the general and overall attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms and then use a semi-structured interview approach to further gain a fuller understanding of their attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education. The questionnaire simply tests the degree of positive or negative attitudes the teachers adopt towards the inclusion of students with special needs while the interview justifies why and how they behave towards students with special needs.

Therefore, a descriptive – explanatory approach in this mixed method study was adopted for this research in order to address research questions adequately.

3.4 POSITION OF THE RESEARCHER

I intend to adopt the dualistic nature of both quantitative and qualitative researcher. First of all, being a quantitative researcher, I have to maintain certain degree of objectivity in conducting the

“professional activities that are widely recognised and understood by respondents; in our case, distributing, collecting and analysing the questionnaires” (Townsend & Burgess, 2009; pg. 117).

This kind of “peripheral role” assumed by the researcher may not provide adequate opportunity to mingle and interact with the participants fully, nor does it not require the researcher to establish a rapport with them during data collection. In this way, the participants in this research could remain anonymous to the researcher who is only interested in phenomenon from a spatial distance (Johnson

& Christensen, 2013). However, adopting the quantitative researcher’s role alone itself does not sufficiently help me to understand how teachers gained their own first-hand experience (Creswell,

2012) through interactions with their students with special needs. Instead, transition from the quantitative researcher to adopting opposite role of qualitative researcher can provide me with better

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY insight into the participants’ daily life of their actual interaction with students with special needs. On the other hand, there is a potential risk associated with the qualitative research; no qualitative researcher is completely free of bias (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005) which often arise when the certain data shared by the participants matches the researcher’s prejudiced notion (Miles & Huberman,

2013).

It was imperative to note these potential limitations associated with opposing domains that exclusively occupied by quantitative and qualitative researches. One more important thing for the readers to take note is that I am hearing impaired and I have considerable interaction with students and persons with disabilities throughout my life. At some point in my professional life, I used to work with the Ministries on a frequent basis in pioneering the national policies on disability and it required me to work extensively with different disability associations. According to Creswell (2012), any previous phenomenological studies could have some degrees of influence between the researchers and the subject and therefore, from time to time, the researcher has to be conscious of his own interpretation of any responses shared by the participants to avoid the potential research bias.

35 RESEARCH DESIGN OF THE PRESENT STUDY

First of all, a survey approach in the form of questionnaires was employed to investigate

Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards students with special needs in the mainstream schools. Findings from these questionnaires inform the relationship among demographic variables, teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion in the mainstream settings. In the succeeding phase, semi-structured interviews follow up on quantitative results to further understand ‘why’ and ‘how’ Japanese and Singaporean teachers hold their perceptions towards the inclusion of students with special needs in their classrooms. This approach is intended to delve further to sieve out any crucial information about their attitudes towards their students through their narrative accounts or their hearsay accounts from other sources. These snippets of information from participants (Coll & Chapman, 2000) would provide rich and multi-layered narrative accounts especially teachers’ feelings, impressions and judgements (Best & Kahn, 1989) that may explain the

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY quantitative results fully or partially. In some cases, these qualitative findings could supplement the quantitative findings which may not fully capture complexity of the dynamics surrounding teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusion in the classrooms. To strengthen the argument,

Ben-Yehuda, et al., (2010), Kim (2011), Lewis and Burman (2008), and Dunne (2002) confirmed that the quantitative findings could be examined more intensively and created more opportunities for further in-depth analysis and interpretation through qualitative findings.

First of all, the questionnaire approach is undertaken to investigate the Japanese and

Singaporean in-service mainstream teachers’ general attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs. Quantitative data are collected from their completed forms and tabulated in the SPSS and quantitative analysis is conducted to investigate the general level of attitudes and teaching-efficacy.

In the qualitative phase, semi-structured interview method follows up on the results obtained from the quantitative research to have a better insight of ‘how’ and ‘why’ Japanese and Singaporean mainstream teachers hold their certain set of beliefs towards the inclusion of students with special needs and how certain factors could influence their perception towards their students. Therefore, it justifies my intention to adopt the mixed methods research in order to provide more comprehensive of teachers’ behaviours towards the students with special needs. Next, the key research questions are discussed in the form of the table that captures the overview of the research tools that are ‘mixed’ for certain research questions. The actual workflow of research methodology is further discussed in Data

Collection Procedure section.

3.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions have been discussed previously in Chapter 2 – Literature Review. Based on this, I am going to identify which research instruments should be utilised and what the key variables should be considered for the particular questions. Let’s look at these first two research question #1 and #2, you could notice that it is actually an amalgamation of qualitative and quantitative researches.

Quantitative research is conducted first to understand the general level of teaching-efficacy and

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY attitudes and to identify the variables. Subsequently, qualitative research follows to find out the reasons why certain factors influence their teaching-efficacy and attitudes. For the research question

#3, it requires quantitative research to analyse the relationship between them. Lastly, interviews are carried out to inquire about their challenges and strategies to better include their children with special needs in their classrooms.

3.7 RESEARCH POPULATION

According to Paul and Jeanne (2012), it is important to obtain a good sample before the actual research to guarantee accuracy and good representation of the population. This discusses how to carefully identify the sample and how I selected certain schools in Singapore and Japan.

3.7.1 Identification of samples In order to identify a good sample for this research, we need to consider carefully of what kind of sample that we want to target so as to obtain the optimum results that we hope to see. In this case, the target population for these two country case studies has been described by these following criteria:

a) The schools are deemed to be inclusive if there are any students with special needs who

are currently studying.

b) In each country case study, both school types are selected i.e. primary and secondary

schools at which support teachers and various kinds of supports are provided.

The inclusive schools refer to the mainstream schools that allow the students with special needs to study alongside with their classmates without special needs and the schools provide certain forms of support for their learning needs. Secondly, in both countries, it is observed that most support has been provided to the students with special needs at primary and secondary schools in both countries. Furthermore, regular teachers teaching at high schools are found to have much less interaction with students with special needs as the enrolment of students with special needs at high schools is much smaller than primary and secondary schools. Therefore, the high school is not included in these country case studies.

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Table 3-1: Overview of Research Methodology for two country case study analysis Research Questions Research Instruments Key Variables Data Analysis

Research Question #1: Teaching self-efficacy 1.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ perceived teaching efficacy towards TEIP scale (Sharma et al., Teaching-efficacy Descriptive Analysis, inclusion of students with special needs? 2012)

1.2: What are the child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables TEIP scale (Umesh Sharma et Teaching-efficacy Descriptive Analysis, t-test, that affect their teaching self-efficacy? al., 2012) ANOVA, Post-hoc, 1.3: How do selected factors from Question 1.2 explain their teaching efficacy Semi structured interview Based on findings from Thematic Analysis towards the inclusion of students with special needs? question 1.2.

Research Question #2: Attitudes 2.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students SACIE-R scale (Forlin et al. Attitudes Descriptive Analysis, with special needs? 2011) 2.2: What are the child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables SACIE-R scale (Forlin et al., Attitudes Descriptive Analysis, t-test, that affect their attitudes? 2011) ANOVA, Post-hoc, 2.3: How do selected factors from Question 2.2 explain their attitudes towards the Semi structured interview Based on findings from Thematic Analysis inclusion of students with special needs? question 2.2. Research Question #3: Relationship between teaching self-efficacy and attitudes 3.1: How does their teaching-efficacy correlate with their attitudes towards the TEIP scale Teaching-efficacy Pearson’s correlation inclusion of students with special needs? SACIE-R scale Attitudes coefficients 3.2: Which type of teaching-efficacy is the best predicator of teachers’ attitudes TEIP scale Teaching-efficacy Multiple regression analysis towards inclusive education? SACIE-R scale Attitudes

Research Question #4: Challenges and strategies in inclusive education 4.1: What are the challenges they face including students with special needs in Semi-structured interview Verbatim Thematic Analysis their inclusive classrooms? 4.2: How do they strategize to address their challenges in implementing inclusive Semi-structured interview Verbatim Thematic Analysis class practices? Created by author

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3.7.2 Sample selection Once the criteria for the population have been set, the sample selection is made to identify schools in Singapore and Japan. The cluster random sampling is the most appropriate to be utilized as it requires selection of samples over a wide area in both countries (Gay, Millls & Airasian, 2009).

Cluster random sampling methods seem to be the most suitable as schools are usually organised in different clusters according to the geographical locations (i.e. North, South, West, and East).

Singapore case study

The list of schools that provide accommodation is found in the Ministry of Education

Singapore website2; according to the Ministry of Education (2015), currently, all Singapore primary schools are resourced with at least one Allied Educator which is known as support teacher or para-professional to support students with special needs. Eighty-one secondary schools have been also designated as inclusive schools to support students with special needs. Among eighty-one secondary schools, there are some schools that provide specialized supports for certain disability groups for example in-house braille printing support system for visually impaired and sign language teachers for hearing impaired students. Based on the provided list of schools from the MOE website,

I wrote in to the primary and secondary schools to request for their participation in this research study. Twenty-five primary schools and twenty-one secondary schools from all regions in Singapore were contacted via emails to request for their permission to participate in this case study. Out of these schools, six primary schools and eight secondary schools had responded positively to the invitation emails. However, due to the unforeseen circumstances, only two primary and two secondary schools had confirmed their full participation in both pilot and actual research studies.

Japan case study

However, in Japan, it is more complicated than Singapore given its larger geographical size and my unfamiliarity with the Japanese education system. The list of school regions, including the place where I was residing, could be found from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science

2 https://www.moe.gov.sg/education/programmes/support-for-children-special-needs#posted-in-aed

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY and Technology website3 which provided a comprehensive list of school clusters in different regions of Japan. Individual municipal education board websites were referred and the list of schools could be found in their websites. Twenty-four schools of selected regions were contacted via formal letters requesting for their cooperation to participate in this study. Four out of ten schools from rural area in

Kyushu region and six out of fourteen schools from urban areas in Kanto region granted me their permissions to collect data from these schools.

3.8 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES

This procedure involves the data collection from survey form and semi-structured interviews. The survey form consists of three main sections: a) Demographic section, b) TEIP

(Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practice) which was devised by Sharma, Loreman, and Forlin (2012), c) SACIE- R (Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised) which was also developed by the same author (Forlin et al. 2011).

3.8.1 Pilot Study Pilot studies are often considered as “mini versions” of a full-scale study that provides a window of opportunity to test the validity and reliability of research instruments, research procedures and research subjects before the actual run of instruments. It is necessary to carry out pilot study with certain smaller group of teachers to test the validity and reliability of instruments. It is “often recommended to estimate response rate and investigate the feasibility of a study” (Johanson

& Brooks, 2010; pg. 1) and the sample size for the pilot study was recommended to include thirty people as an appropriate sample size (Johanson & Brooks, ibid). Teijlingen, Edwin, and

Hundleylingen (2001) recommended that teachers who have already participated in the pilot study be excluded from the actual study in order to reduce the likelihood of research bias. They also emphasized the importance of pilot study that could flag out the “advance warning about where the main research project could fail where research protocols may not be followed, or whether proposed

3 http://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/education/micro_detail/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2013/09/27/1339 783_1.pdf

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY methods or instruments are inappropriate or too complicated” (Teijlingen, Edwin, & Hundleylingen,

2001; pp 1). De Vaus (1993; pg. 54) quoted in his own words, “Do not take risk. Pilot test first”, underlining the importance of pilot study. The pilot study respondents were requested to provide their feedback and suggestions to improve the quality of questionnaires for the actual study. For instance, one respondent from Singapore provided some suggestions: a better way of categorising teaching posts and some additional information on different kinds of disability under footnote to help the respondents who are not familiar with disability terminology. Another respondent from Japan also suggested that the succinct instructions should be provided to help the respondents to select their responses. Various feedback and suggestions have been taken into consideration before making some revisions to the questionnaires.

I had an opportunity to conduct several pilot discussion sessions with small groups of teachers from different schools so as to secure constructive feedback from participants on quality of interview questions, procedures and processes. During the interview, I asked some questions in relation to inclusive education and how the schools provided different kinds of support for their students with special needs. Each interview session with the teachers would approximately last for

30 to 40 minutes depending on their teaching schedules. These pilot interviews offered me an opportunity to reflect on the interviewees’ responses and to improve my interviewing technique to elicit richer responses

3.8.2 Ethical considerations Prior to conduct the actual research, an ethical approval was sought from Waseda

University Office of Research Ethics. To fulfil the requirement of obtaining the approval from IRB, the research proposal consisting of detailed research methods and explanatory literature reviews on inclusive education and teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs was submitted to the University ethics committee in November 2015. After the first round of interview with the ethics committee members, the approval was officially granted (see the Appendix 2). In the case of Singapore, separate application was made to the Singapore Ministry of Education to obtain a secure approval to conduct the research at selected regular schools in

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY adherence to the local legal requirements. Formal written request letters were emailed to Singapore participating schools to seek their permissions to participate in the research with their teachers.

All teacher participants from Japanese and Singapore schools were informed affront of their voluntary participations and full data confidentiality. In this way, they were given their options not to participate or to withdraw from the research at any time without any penalty. Any information provided by the participants would be securely destroyed. Selected participants were also requested to fill up in the consent forms before they agreed to proceed with the interviews and to be video recorded. They were also reminded that they would only need to answer certain questions which they feel comfortable with. The gathered questionnaires and video-clips were securely locked in the lockable cabinet. Transcripts of these interviews were only made available to my supervisor and examiners from Doctoral Thesis Examination Committee. However, in all transcripts and in my dissertation, I used pseudonyms to conceal the participants’ identities.

3.8.3 Research Instruments Data were solicited from the respondents in both countries through the use of hard-copy survey. Initially, online survey was originally thought of as being more cost effective modes of survey research and lesser error-prone. Their responses could be easily obtained from the backend systems without manually input of their responses into the excel spreadsheets or SPSS. Some online survey websites provide free statistical techniques that could analyse the survey data to determine validity, reliability and other important statistical tests. However, in the cases of some hard-to-reach areas especially the rural areas or restriction of access to internet at schools, it poses challenges in rolling out online surveys to teachers. Even teachers are given their full access to school network, given their busy schedules, they may not have the luxury of time to complete their online surveys and it risks in higher rate of incomplete responses from teachers. Therefore, after much consideration and discussion with some teachers, I opted for the traditional pen-and-paper method to optimize the maximum response rate from teachers.

Before distribution of hard-copy survey forms to the teachers, it was necessary to determine the time duration of completion of the survey form. If the time taken to complete the survey form

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY was deemed to be too long and onerous on their workload, it resulted in higher possibility of not completing the survey forms properly or unable to give their most appropriate responses to questions.

In order to circumvent these potential pitfalls, questionnaires were also pilot-tested with certain group of teachers with the introductory page to inform that the appropriate time taken to complete the questionnaires was around 30 minutes. After completion of the questionnaires, they were asked to feedback on the questionnaires. Based on their responses from all teachers, they felt that 30 minutes time frame was the most reasonable for them.

Based on the feedback from Japanese and Singaporean teachers on certain issues e.g. word rephrasing, content and succinct instructions, I made important revisions to both English and

Japanese versions before discussing with my professors. Once I obtained the clearance from my professors, I would hand-deliver hard copy questionnaires with stipulated deadlines on the introduction letter to the representative teachers from all participating Singapore schools. I also followed up periodically with the representative teachers to remind their colleagues to complete their questionnaires before the stipulated deadlines. Unlike Japan, Singapore’s geographical proximity was not a big barrier to distribution of hard copy questionnaires to schools. In Japan, I relied on costly postal service that provided “letter pack” that could only deliver hard copy questionnaires that weighed up to 4kg to participating schools.

3.8.4 Questionnaires The questionnaire form consisted of three main parts: a) demographic questionnaires; b)

Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP); c) Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about

Inclusive Education - Revised (SACIE-R). Permissions to use TEIP and SACIE-R for my research were fully granted from the original authors (See the email approval from authors: Appendix 3).

Part A: Demographic questionnaire

At the beginning of the questionnaire, respondents were asked to select their most appropriate responses to 13 items including 1 sub-item of item 6 in English version and 5 sub-items of item 6 in Japanese version. This survey form mainly asked for information on: gender, age groups, educational stage, highest level of educational qualification, current teaching posts, years of teaching

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY experience, prior and/or current teaching experience with students with special needs, prior interaction with persons with disabilities, special education trainings, legal knowledge about education for children with disabilities, level of confidence to teach students with disabilities, regular contact with family members and/or friends with disabilities and teaching experience with specific disability groups. Short descriptive notes of different kinds of disabilities were provided to aid respondents to select their most accurate response to different kinds of disabilities e.g. attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and central auditory processing disorder (CAPD).

Part B: Teaching Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) scale

The Teaching Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) scale (Umesh Sharma et al., 2012) was originally devised to measure pre-service teachers’ beliefs about their abilities towards inclusive education, in other words, perceived teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs in regular classroom, using 18-items scale that used the forced-choice Likert-type scale in which 1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Somewhat disagree, 4 = Somewhat agree, 5 = Agree and 6 = Strongly agree. ‘Neutral’ response will not be provided. This TEIP scale is not restricted to pre-service teachers but also it can be used to test in-service teachers’ perceived teaching efficacy in previous studies (Malinen et al., 2012; Savolainen, Engelbrecht, Nel, & Malinen, 2012). This scale is based on three key factors: Efficacy in using inclusive instruction, Efficacy in collaboration and

Efficacy in managing problem behaviour (e.g. “I am able to provide an alternative explanation or example when students are confused”, “I am able to work jointly with other professionals and staff

(e.g. aides, other teachers) to teach students with disabilities in the classroom”, and “I am confident when dealing with students who are physically aggressive”. The number of items for each of these three subscales is outlined in the Table 3-2. There were no negatively worded questions; the higher the score the TEIP scale, it would infer the participant had higher efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms. This questionnaire is consistent with the guidelines provided by Bandura (1997) who theorized that teachers’ perceived teaching-efficacy could have an impact on creating certain kind of environment for their students and their judgement of how they would differentiate their teaching approaches for their students in their classrooms.

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Sharma et al., (2012) reported that based on the test on a sample of 609 teachers from four countries (Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and India), the reliability coefficient for the overall scale was r = .89 and the three following factors had high coefficients of r = .93, .85 and .85 for efficacy in using inclusive instructions, collaboration and managing problem behaviour respectively. Given the high reliability score and the consistency that this scale has been often used in other previous studies, I had the confidence to use this TEIP scale for these country case studies.

Table 3-2: Breakdown of items based on different subscale sections in TEIP Number of items represented in each subscale sections Efficacy in using Efficacy in Efficacy in managing problem inclusive instructions collaboration behaviour. 6 6 6 Source: Adapted from (Sharma et al., 2012)

Part C: Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education – Revised (SACIE-R) scale Data on teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools could be examined using the Sentiments, Attitudes and Concerns about Inclusive Education

– Revised scale (SACIE-R, Forlin et al., 2011). Originally Loreman, Earle, Sharma, & Forlin (2007) used the previous instrument – SACIE scale (without R being annexed to it) to conduct their investigation on teachers’ attitudes with 19 items which were adapted from three established questionnaires: Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education scale (ATIES; Wilczenski, 1995), a modified version of the Interaction with Disabled Persons scale (IDP; Forlin, Jobling, & Carroll, 2001) and the

Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale (CIES; Sharma Umesh, 2002). This original research instrument went through series of revision and eventually, it was revised with the reduction of 19 statements to 15 statements that measured three main components: sentiments towards persons with disabilities, attitudes towards students with special needs and concerns about the inclusion of students with special needs in the inclusive classrooms. According to these authors, these three subsections capture the different aspects of teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs; sentiments subscale identifies how teachers feel about interacting with persons with special needs (e.g. I tend to make contacts with people with disabilities brief and I finish them as quickly as possible.), attitudes subscale measure how much teachers are willing to accept students

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY with different kinds of disabilities in their classrooms (e.g. Students who require communicative technologies (for example Braille or sign language) should be in regular classes.) and concerns subscale addresses their concerns about inclusive education and students with special needs (e.g. I am concerned that it will be difficult to give appropriate attention to all students in an inclusive classroom). Teachers’ attitudes can be measured by using a forced-choice multichotomous

Likert-type scale in which 1 = Strongly Disagree. 2 = Disagree, 3 = Agree and 4 = Strongly Agree with no ‘Neutral’ option provided for the informants. Likewise in the case of TEIP, SACI-R does not necessarily restrict to the pre-service teachers but it can be used for practicing teachers in the regular schools ( Forlin et al., 2011). Unlike the TEIP scale, there are 10 negatively worded statements and 5 positively worded statements. Before the overall attitude score (including sentiment, attitude and concern subscales) towards the inclusion of students with special needs is tabulated, these negatively worded statements are reverse coded so that the higher the score is, the more positive the teachers respond towards the inclusive education. Breakdown of items in SACIE-R scale has been outlined in the Table 3-3. This SACIE-R scale is also consistent with the proposed Theory of Planned Behaviour

(as discussed in Chapter 2); Ajzen (1991) theorized that teachers’ attitudes were largely influenced by various array of control beliefs which influenced their perception of their ability to perform particular behaviour and self-belief about how manageable the actor could engage in this particular task. External factors for example presence or absence of resources, skills, knowledge or any factor that facilitates one to perform tasks effectively also play the important roles in shaping teaches’ attitudes. SACIE-R has been conducted in the previous studies and based on the particular study conducted at 9 institutions in 4 countries (Canada, Hong Kong, India and the United States), the overall reliability coefficient of the SACIE-R from 542 teachers was reported to be r = .74 with the following individual reliability coefficient of three subscales: sentiments: r = .75, attitudes: r - .67 and concerns = .65 ( Forlin et al., 2011).

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Table 3-3: Breakdown of items based on different subscale sections in SACIE-R Number of items represented in each subscale sections Sentiments Sentiments Sentiments 5 (negatively worded 5 (negatively worded 5 (negatively worded statements) statements) statements) Source: Adapted from (Forlin et al., 2011)

The English and Japanese versions of questionnaires including TEIP and SACIE-R are attached in the Appendix 4.

3.8.5 Semi-structured interviews Semi-structured face-to-face interviews are selected in this case study context because it could provide some degree of flexibility for both researcher and interviewee subjects (Freebody,

2003; Rose, 2002) and it centres on the descriptive nature of data and process rather than output and inductive analysis of data (Bodgan & Biklen, 1992). An interview schedule was carefully crafted to allow me to establish constructive and positive rapport with the interviewees and to ensure that the interview session was kept on the right track within the agreed-upon time period to obtain high quality of data (Ahsan, Sharma, & Deppeler, 2011). Open-ended questions were asked and I had greater degree of flexibility and freedom to modify interviewing approach depending on the demands of the interview circumstances as being recommended by Cohen, Manion, and Morrison

(2007) and Creswell (2008).

The semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate the qualitative impact of inclusive education on teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools. Participants were selected through the purposeful sampling criteria which shortlisted teachers based on the school hierarchical positions and those who were armed with their teaching qualifications. In each school, teachers selected for the individual interview were based on four main teaching job categories: 1) school leaders, 2) middle managers, 3) regular teachers and 4) teacher aides (para-educator or para-professional who provided their learning support for students with special needs). As I was hearing impaired, a video recorded interview and/or sign language interpreter could provide more accuracy for my data collection. The video recorder allowed me to review the video clips many times at my own will.

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At the beginning of the interviews, all teachers were asked to make short introductory responses like age, years of teaching, relevant teaching experience with students with special needs so as to encourage the respondents to be more familiar with the interviewer. Prior to the interview, I sent the soft copy of interview guide to the schools to pre-empt them on what they would be likely asked during the interview. In this way, the respondents would be able to prepare themselves with appropriate responses to those questions in the question guide. However, since the interview took the form of semi-structured format, I did not necessarily ask all questions and from time to time, depending on the type of responses elicited from the participants, I might ask him or her for further details which were not discussed in the interview guide.

In the interview schedule, the questions were based on my judgement about the issues that pinpointed to efficacy and attitude-related information from the interviewees. Based on the Brenner

(1981)’s interview guidelines, researchers were required to present a clear sequence of carefully worded questions with pre-planned prompt questions. It helped the interviewees to make comparisons among these questions and to craft their responses according to them. Prompt questions, for example, “what do you mean by this? Sorry, I am not clear about what you have shared with me and can you provide additional details about it?” prompts, were asked from time to time to obtain further clarification and to affirm the informants’ understanding of questions. At the beginning of the interview, informants were informed that they had their rights not to answer certain questions if they felt that they were not obliged to and they were further assured of their confidentiality. It enhanced the importance of open communication channels between the interviewers and interviewees to allow freer exchange and articulation of interviewees’ views of what was happening in their own classrooms with respect to inclusive education practices and to assist them to stand back and re-evaluated their understanding about their roles and responsibilities based on their recalled real-life classroom experiences (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011; Jordan, Schwartz, & McGhie-Richmond,

2009).

All open-ended questions presented in the interview schedule were categorized into three main sections: (See Appendix 5). The key idea behind the selection of interview questions was to

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY encourage the respondents to provide more detailed answers on “teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy” which were not adequately covered in the questionnaires. In the Section B, these questions were derived from the previous research conducted by Haihambo and Lightfoot (2010) who conducted interviews with 161 Namibian teachers and university students from all regions of

Namibia about their attitudes towards people and students with disabilities. In next Section C, some questions were designed based on the previous study conducted by Hodge et al. (2009) who interviewed 29 physical education teachers from Ghana (Africa), Japan, Puerto Rico and the United

States on their teaching-efficacy and beliefs on inclusion and teaching students with disabilities. The last Section D asked general questions about their trainings, impressions about inclusive education and this would help to shed light on additional information that I might not be aware of.

3.8.6 Translation The original questionnaire was written in English and with the help from native Japanese speaker, it was first translated into Japanese which is the first language of Japanese teachers in order to aid in their understanding and favourable response to all questions. The procedure for ensuring the accuracy of checking the Japanese sentences used in the questionnaires and interview schedules involved two steps. First, a certified translator who was fluent in English and Japanese and taught

Japanese at one of the Japanese schools was approached to check the quality and content of the

Japanese questionnaire. Second, the revised version was proof-read by my professor and other professor from other university, both of them were equally bilingual in English and Japanese to ensure that the precise meaning of a sentence or subtle nuances of a statement that can be easily understood in Japanese context. Finally, the revised Japanese version was rechecked by another PhD student from different faculty before the Japanese version was ready for the distribution to the teachers.

The SACIE-R and TEIP scales were originally written in English by the original authors

(Forlin, 2013). However, there were certain items that were not accurately translated and several revisions had been made to certain items to ensure that the translation would sound more natural to the Japanese native speakers. These changes were also discussed between the professors and me.

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Before rolling out the Japanese version of questionnaires to Japanese teachers, the questionnaire was first pilot-tested with selected number of Japanese volunteer teachers who were recruited through the help of the professor from other university. In this pilot-tested questionnaire, additional question in free response section had been added to ask teachers for any comment or feedback to improve the language usage in this questionnaire. All the comments received have been carefully taken into consideration before revising the questionnaire for the actual study.

3.8.7 Trustworthiness of the study In order to establish and enhance the trustworthiness of the results obtained from these studies, it is necessary to assess the reliability (Gay et al., 2009) and validity (Field, 2009) of the research instruments and credibility of the researcher (Merriam, 2009). Validity simply refers to how well the instrument is able to measure what it is purported to measure based on the researcher’s questions. Carmines and Zeller (1979) identified different types of validities: face validity, sampling validity, criterion validity. Face validity seemed to be the most appropriate measure to assess the validity of the research instrument especially the questionnaire. It is necessary to request the respondents to critique or to flag for any ambiguities by providing a text box at the end of the questionnaires during the survey phase. Several feedbacks e.g. suggestions to rephrasing of certain words, teaching job category, more details about the teaching trainings were shared.

Reliability refers to the degree to which how well the research instrument is able to produce consistent results. The research instrument is considered to be reliable if it produces consistent results in different situation (Groth-Marnat, 2009). Main types of reliability tests are introduced: test-retest reliability, parallel forms reliability, inter-rater reliability and internal consistency reliability. Likewise in this case, internal consistency reliability test was selected to measure the reliability of the questionnaires through Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. According to DeVellis (1991: pg. 85), the minimally acceptable alpha coefficient should be at least .65 though most of the researchers recommended the Cronbach’s alpha value of .70. In these country case studies,

Cronbach’s alpha value of .65 is used to test the reliability of the instruments. Based on the pilot research reliability result, it is found that the overall Cronbach’s alpha reliability for SACIE-R in

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Japan case study was found to be very low. It suggested that the alpha value was suspected that it could be due to the poor translation from original English version to Japanese version and this, therefore, required me to re-examine the wording of Japanese questionnaire.

Lastly, in spite of the fact that many researchers or experts are unwilling to accept the credibility of qualitative research, there are some reliable structures in place to ensure the rigor of the qualitative practice for years (Shenton, 2004). Steps must be carefully adopted to ensure that the findings are the results of original experiences and opinions shared by the respondents, not based on the researcher’s personal preferences. In this case, I have to transcribe interviews from these respondents by transcribing every word said from the video recording to ensure the credibility of the interviews. It also includes the enlisting the external help from Waseda University’s Disability Office to transcribe Japanese video-recorded interviews.

3.8.8 Actual Study Prior to conducting the actual study at these participating schools in both countries, the letter of Ethics Approval from Waseda University Office of Research Ethics and approval from the original writers for the TEIP and SACIE-R questionnaires must be sought first. Upon getting the clearance to conduct the research at these schools, I made the visits to these schools. Principals or vice principals were briefed on the objective of the study and samples of questionnaires and interview guide were shown to them. In Japan case study only, sign language interpreters were hired to assist me to communicate with them. Brief explanations were given to them on how participating teachers were expected to assist in the study and any other questions regarding the research instruments and collection procedure were freely asked.

A total of 451 questionnaires were distributed in 14 participating schools (10 Japanese schools and 4 Singapore schools). The number of returned and completed questionnaires was 372

(82.4%). The main reasons cited for incomplete or unreturned questionnaires attributed to: 1) lack of time to complete questionnaires; 2) unwillingness to fill in the questionnaires due to personal reasons; and 3) absence of teachers during the survey period.

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Following the survey form, semi-structured interviews were carried out at same 14 participating schools (10 Japanese schools; and 4 Singapore schools). Based on the earlier discussion with the participating schools, the schools were expected to select 4 voluntary teachers who were in

4 main teaching job categories: school leader, middle manager, school teacher and teacher aide. In total, 56 voluntary teachers were expected to participate in the interviews. However, on the prearranged dates, only 53 (94.6%) teachers participated in 30-minute semi-structured interviews at their premises. Only 1 teacher from Singapore school and 2 teachers from Japanese schools were absent from the interview. The reasons cited by the persons-in-charge were that they were on urgent sick leave and they were unable to find any suitable replacement at the point of time. All the interviews were video-taped with their permission obtained. One of the teachers from a Japanese school voiced her concern about the confidentiality and she had been assured that this video-recorded clip would not be shown to anyone except the professors and colleagues from my class. All the interviews were transcribed in Microsoft Word. The data collection procedures were outlined in Figure 3-1.

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Figure 3-1: P rocedures for explanatory sequential mixed methods design

P 1-Year Pilot Study Ethics Clearance

PHASE ONE: PLANNING JAPAN SCHOOLS SINGAPORE SCHOOLS (n = 10) (n = 4)

n = 189 n = 183 QUANTITATIVE DATA (n = 372)

PHASE TWO: DATA COLLECTION n = 38 QUALITATIVE DATA n = 15 (n = 53)

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

Validity/Reliability Data Analysis • Factor Analysis • Organize and familiarize with data • Cronbach's Alpha • Identify possible ideas or concepts • Develop overarching themes Data Analysis • Check reliability and validity of data • Descriptive Analysis (triangulation of data) • Bi- and Multivariate tests e.g. ANOVA • Give plausible explanation for findings • Multiple Regression • Produce report • Pearson's Correlation coefficient PHASE THREE: Results DATA ANALYSIS Results • SPSS software • NVivo • Quantitative results • Qualitative results

Mixed Methods Results

PhD Dissertation

Interpretation and Implications

9091 Source: Created by author

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3.9 DATA ANALYSIS

While performing the data analysis, there are several steps to ensure the robustness and accuracy of the data from these research instruments. First of all, several types of analytical instruments were carefully considered for robust data analysis; the possible candidates for the quantitative result analysis are: Stata, SPSS, SAS, R and EView. Only Stata and SPSS are freely available at school computers on the Waseda campus. As far as the thematic analysis of interview transcripts are concerned, there are several possible QDA (Qualitative Data Analysis) software that can perform various functions e.g. thematic coding, annotating, and analysing interview transcripts.

The popular QDA software applications that are often used by the researchers are Atlas, NVivo,

QDA Miner and Dedoose.

3.9.1 Quantitative statistical analysis In quantitative analysis, Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) – Version 23 was chosen even though I had taken the Quantitative studies module using STATA at Waseda University.

The reasons for using SPSS over STATA are that SPSS is widely used in Social Science research and the instructions for using the SPSS can be found in many statistical textbooks. One of them was

“Doing Quantitative Research in Education with SPSS” which was written by Muijs (2011) and it covered many important research areas pertaining to education. Aside from it, research tips could be easily found in the website for anyone (https://statistics.laerd.com). With full array of real-life examples and step-by-step instructions with SPSS screenshots, it enables many beginners to perform much complex statistical analysis. Therefore, I decided to use SPSS for my quantitative analysis.

3.9.2 Data Coding Before entering the code in the SPSS, I had to assign individual respondent with unique code by first two letters of school names and number. For example OG03, in protecting the confidentiality of the school name, only first two alphabets were selected. In some cases, when some schools were found to have exactly same first two letters, then the other school would have three letters instead of two letters in order to distinguish itself from others. The number just refers to the sequential order of

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY the respondents who had submitted the questionnaires to the person-in-charge.

While entering the data into SPSS software, I developed a mini code book in SPSS to keep records of all codes which were defined to tag a concept or idea with a value. The code book included the definitions of concept that were assigned with specific number. The excerpt of the code book was shown in the Table 3-4. For any missing or invalid valid, I intentionally inputted “99” so that the SPSS software could recognise it as missing or invalid data that would not be included in the statistical calculation.

Table 3-4: An example of the code book in SPSS Name Label Name Values Measure Sex Gender Male = 1 Nominal Female = 2 Specialtraining Had taken teacher Yes = 1 Nominal training on special No = 2 needs Teachingpost Current professional School leader = 1 Ordinal teaching post Middle Manager = 2 Teacher = 3 Teacher Aides = 4 Source: Created by author In SACIE-R questionnaire, since there were 10 negatively worded statements, I had to reverse code negative items so as not to affect the accuracy of statistical result. In this case 10 selected items on the scale of 1 to 4, in reverse-coding them, I performed reverse coding code which was shown below.

Line 1 : RECODE q1(1=4)(2=3)(3=2)(4=1) (MISSING=SYSMIS) INTO q1_recode Line 2 : VARIABLE LABELS q1_recode ‘Question 1_Recoded’. Line 3 : EXECUTE.

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3.9.3 Descriptive Analysis, Multiple Regression and Pearson Correlation Muijs (2011) recommended the first step to perform quantitative analysis, that is descriptive analysis to help describe and present data in a meaningful way for example, mean, standard deviation, frequency, percentage, variance and graphical representation. Descriptive analysis is particularly useful in finding out the demographic values of teachers depending on the research questions. Summary of demographic values have been recorded in the excel spreadsheet to give me an overview of demographic profiles of teachers in two countries. Three major statistical tests are intended to carry out descriptive analysis: 1) Independent t-test; 2) ANOVA; 3) MANOVA; 4)

Post-hoc. Only t-test and ANOVA are briefly discussed here.

The independent t-test is to compare the means between two non-related groups and one can check whether teachers’ attitudes towards students with special needs differ from each other based on gender (Male vs Female). This t-test must observe important assumptions: 1) dependent variables should be on continuous scale; 2) independent variables should be consisted of only two independent groups (Male vs Female; Have had interaction with persons with disabilities vs Never had any interaction with persons with disability).

The One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test compares one independent variable that consists of three or more groups or sets of independent data against one dependent variable. For example, one can identify whether teacher’s teaching efficacy could be affected by current teaching jobs which consist of four main categories of jobs: school leader, middle manager, teacher and teacher-aide. ANOVA must obey these important assumptions: 1) the dependent variables should be on continuous scale; 2) independent variables should be consisted of at least two independent groups.

In order to answer the question on whether there is any degree of association between teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy, Pearson’s correlation coefficient is utilised. Since both specified variables are continuous variables, it makes sense to use formula for Pearson’s correlation coefficient rather than Spearman’s rho rank-order correlation coefficient which only uses two ordinal variables. The Pearson’s correlation formula is as followed (Muijs, 2011):

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∑푛 (푋 − 푋̅)(푌 − 푌̅) 푟 = 푖−1 푖 푖 (푛 − 1)(푆푥 − 푆푦)

푋푖 and 푌푖 are individual observations (continuous variables),

푋̅ and 푌̅ are the mean value for variables X and Y,

n is the number of cases,

푆푥 and 푆푦 are the standard deviations of variables X and Y. Based on this formula, this would determine how much two different variables vary and contrast with each other. Again, Muijs (2011) has outlined several assumptions: 1) the variables must be either interval or ratio measurements; 2) the variables must be approximately normally distributed; 3) a linear relationship between two variables must be assumed; and 4) there must be an assumed homoscedasticity4 of data. In this analysis, the value of r could range from -1 to +1 and the strength of the correlation is represented by the absolute value of r. As the rule of thumb, the strength of the relationship between teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy can be determined based on the value of r which is outlined in the Table 3-5.

Table 3-5: Rule of thumb to interpret the value of r Size of correlation coefficient, r Interpretation .90 to 1.00 (-.90 to -1.00) Very high positive (or negative) correlation .70 to .90 (-.70 to -.90) High positive (or negative) correlation .50 to .70 (-.50 to -.70) Moderate positive (or negative) correlation .30 to .50 (-.30 to -.50) Low positive (or negative) correlation .00 to .30 (.00 to -.30) Negligible correlation Source: Adapted from Muijis (2011)

Multiple regression analysis serves as an extension of simple linear regression to identify various types of independent variables that affect dependent variables. This is useful to answer research question which requires the identification of types of independent variables e.g. which type of teaching-efficacy could predict teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom. In order to perform multiple regression to see whether given independent

4 Homoscedasticity refers to the variances along the line of best fit. Source: https://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/pearson-correlation-coefficient-statistical-guide-2.php

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“teachers’ attitudes”. Two key assumptions must be observed before performing multiple regression analysis (Muijs, 2011: pg. 1) the dependent variable must be continuous; and 2) independent variables can be either continuous or categorical (ordinal or nomimal). The formula of multiple regression analysis is of below:

푌 = 푎 + 푏1푋1 + 푏2푋2 + ⋯

where

Y is the dependent variable,

a is the Y-intercept value,

X1, X2,… are independent variables that predict the value of dependent variable,

b1, b2 ,… are change in Y variable for every increment change in X1, X2,…variables

3.9.4 Qualitative thematic analysis There are numbers of approaches to carrying out different approaches in the field of qualitative research analysis. The commonly used approaches towards conducting qualitative research are: 1) grounded theory; 2) ethnography; 3) interpretative phenomenological analysis; 4) narrative analysis; 5) discourse analysis; and 6) content analysis (thematic analysis). The full description of different types of qualitative approaches except content analysis is given in the

Appendix 5. However, among all these various techniques, content analysis was voted to be the most appropriate method for this study.

Content analysis is often interchangeably used with thematic analysis and both generally mean the same thing in this context. This can be particularly useful if the researcher is interested in summarising and categorising themes used in the data collection. Data is obtained from data sources: people’s responses to free response section in questionnaires, video footage, written documents e.g. diaries, journals and others. It helps to guide and develop the interview schedule to brainstorm questions and ask participants questions that are related to the particular research topic (Boyle, 1994).

This often requires counting of frequency appearing words or common phrases and development of coding rules to guide the researchers in their analysis with the help of software packages.

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Boyatzis (1998) and Roulston (2001) supported that though thematic analysis was considered to be a poorly demarcated and hardly recognised, it remained to be one of the most widely used methods in qualitative research. According to Boyatzis (1998), thematic analysis was classified as one of the qualitative research tools to identify, analyse and report major themes within given data.

The reason for adopting this popular tool was attributed to its flexibility and it did not involve any complex interpretation of reflective research and hermeneutic analysis that referred to the text interpretation especially in the fields of religion or law. It is useful for those researchers who prefer to obtain simple and straightforward answers to the research questions.

In this context of my research, the content analysis is found to be the most appropriate as compared to other approaches. Grounded theory is not possible because at the point of data collection, I have already completed his information gathering about teaching-efficacy and teachers’ attitudes towards students with special needs. Ethnography approach could not be used as this research study does not entirely focus on the study of the culture alone. Again, discourse analysis, narrative analysis and interpretative psychological analysis are also not appropriate in this study as this research is not particularly interested in analysis of participants’ use of language as a proxy for their experiences. Rather, the researcher is particularly interested in summarising and categorising information in terms of emerging themes pertaining to the teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards students with special needs. Therefore, content analysis is perceived to facilitate answering my research questions and could fit in social constructivism in a classroom which Vygotsky (1978) explained that social world (in this case, school classrooms) begins to develop out of the individuals

(teachers)’ interactions with the society.

Braun and Clark (2006) developed a generic step-by-step guide to thematic analysis that involves six main phases: 1) familiarising with data; 2) generating initial codes; 3) identifying themes; 4) reviewing themes; 5) defining and naming themes; 6) developing report. However, they emphasized that there was no hard rule to follow through all these phases strictly as it is not just a linear process but rather an iterative process that allowed the researchers to move back and forth between phases as necessary. The process of content analysis is outlined in the Table 3-6.

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Table 3-6: Process of content analysis Content Analysis Phases Description of Phase Familiarising oneself with the data Transcribing verbatim; re-reading of data to search for patterns or meanings; writing down the initial thoughts about data. Generating the initial codes Identifying and grouping any interesting data in a systematic manner; retaining any contradictory codes Identifying the themes Collating codes into overarching themes, gathering relevant data under each theme, discarding nothing Reviewing the themes Checking whether extracted data could relate to the themes; generating a thematic map of the analysis Defining and naming the themes Ongoing refining themes by combining or omitting some data if necessary; generating lucid definitions and theme names for each theme. Producing the report Need to demonstrate that the analysis could provide a coherent and concise and interesting account of the story and relate to research question and literature, thus producing a scholarly report of qualitative analysis. Source: Adapted from Braun and Clark (2006)

Phase 1: Familiarising with data

It is critical to be “immerse yourself in the data to the extent that you are familiar with the depth and breadth of the content”. It involves “‘repeated reading’ of the data and the reading the data in an active way – searching for meanings, patterns and so on (Braun and Clark, 2006; pg. 87)”. The researcher gets immersed in the data by thoroughly reading through teacher transcripts, searching for key data or pattern underneath them. It has to be done repeatedly to ensure that no key information is inadvertently left out. During this phase, the researcher makes one’s notes and develops some raw ideas for coding in the next phase.

Phase 2: Generating initial codes

Based on the prior reading, this phase involves working through the data to identify the interesting feature which is collectively known as code. Code is defined as “the most basic segment, or element, of the raw data or information that can be assessed in a meaningful way regarding the phenomenon” (Boyatzis, 1998: pg. 63). Before moving to the next phase that hunts for emerging

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY themes, it is necessary to organise these codes and data into well-representative categories (Tuckett,

2005) which are, in other words, known as themes. In order to perform coding, it can be done manually or through QDA software. In this analysis, NVivo (Mac version) is used to identify and select certain extracts from the transcript. Then the researcher will ‘drag’ these particular extracts to specific code holders which are known as “Node” in NVivo. This ‘Node’ represents a particular idea or concept based on the data excerpts.

Phase 3: Identifying themes

This phase only commences when all the data have been identified and properly coded. Then the researcher will need to identify the potential emerging themes at the “broader level of themes, rather than codes” (Braun and Clark, 2006; pg. 87) and group the similar codes into identified themes that effectively explain the distinct characteristics of the data. Based on this suggestion, the researcher will have to read the transcript couples of times to identify any important themes that pertain to teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom.

Phase 4: Reviewing themes

Only after the researcher completes a set of potential themes, he/she needs to refine the themes. This phase involves two important steps; the first step requires the researcher to review all the coded extracts and see whether these coded extracts are relevant to the particular themes. If the coded extracts do not fit in well with the theme, the researcher will have to rework the theme, reorganise coded extracts into different themes or just simply discard particular coded extract or even the whole theme. Researcher needs to review the themes to check whether it “reflects the meanings evident in the data set as a whole” (Braun and Clark, 2006; pg. 91). In case of any contradictory data, Denzin (2001) and Power (2004) recommended interpretive and reflexive interview listening and reading approaches to allow the researchers to re-listen to the recording, re-read transcripts, rethink the personal characteristics of informants e.g. gender, social status, recall the facial expression and body languages and re-analyse the physical environment of the interview sessions to extract the meaning of contradictory information.

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Phase 5: Defining and naming themes

Once the themes have been clearly developed and defined, possible theme names could be given to identify particular themes towards the end of this phase. It is important to identify the

“‘story’ that each theme tells” (Braun and Clark, 2006; pg. 92) and see whether all these themes could piece together to narrate the fuller story in relation to the research questions. Theme names are required to be concise, capturing sufficient information so as to give the readers a sense of what the themes encapsulate.

Phase 6: Developing report

This phase begins when the researcher has already developed a comprehensive set of carefully thought-out themes that capture all pertinent information that is related to teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy. Then the researcher is able to provide evidence to support the arguments through some important references to concrete examples of respondents’ quotes. In this stage, it is important for the researcher to consciously relate back to the research questions and literature reviews.

Qualitative data analysis (QDA) software

NVivo 11 (Mac version) was chosen for this qualitative finding analysis. The screenshot of

NVivo (Mac version) is shown below for the readers’ general understanding. NVivo is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) software that assists the researchers to minimize the amount of time and effort performing complicated web of tasks to identify, extract, group similar codes, develop themes and string data segments from different sections of documents (Nastasi & Schensul, 2005). Formerly,

NVivo was used to be known as QSR NUD*IST (non-parametric unstructured data indexing, searching, and theorizing) and was under development for more than a decade. NVivo was conceptualised to be viable in this investigation because it could allow a huge volume of textual or graphical data to be stored and coded easily. The reasons why I decided to choose NVivo over other

QDA software packages (ATLAS.ti, QDA miner, Dedoose, MAXQDA, and others) are:

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1) NVivo has its uncanny and intuitive programming that allows the researcher to structure and organise the data into logical spreadsheet which can be easily edited and readily accessed by the researcher 2) The researcher is able to locate units of data easily and allows him to code a word, a short phrase, an idea or even a picture with coding functionality easily. 3) Coded data can be easily retrieved and organised in any unlimited coloured codes that help the researcher to identify and access easily. 4) NVivo allows the researcher to perform matrix coding queries to assist the researchers identify the patterns emerged across selected groups of data.

Before embarking on the data analysis in NVivo, I enrolled in a full-day course that was conducted by a certified NVivo trainer and the participants were introduced with a few case studies of how to perform coding and analysis of data through matrix coding queries. At the end of the course, the participants had their opportunities to clarify with their trainers and they were awarded their certificate of completion.

With the reference to the key research questions, all statements provided by informants were identified and highlighted. Concise notes using keywords and explanatory statements were developed to pinpoint particular segment of data in the Japanese transcript of qualitative data. By doing this method, this “structural coding” was adopted to answer the key research questions and this kind of coding “applies to a content based or conceptual phrase representing a topic of inquiry to a segment of data related to a specific research question, used to frame the interview” (Saldana,

2013; pg. 84). From there, recurring or frequently occurring words were consolidated into ‘nodes’

(in NVivo, node refers to category or group of similar ideas) and thereafter organised into themes that represented the data. In this process, content/thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo 11.

Once all the data had been consolidate, triangulation of data was carried out to ensure the trustworthiness of qualitative data (Leatherman & Niemeyer, 2005). The figure of the screenshot of the NVivo (Mac version) can be seen in Figure 3-2.

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Figure 3-2: Screenshot of NVivo (Mac Version)

Source: Created by author

3.10 RATIONALES FOR CONDUCTING COUNTRY CASE STUDIES

Malinen et al., (2013) made their convincing arguments to support their reasons for conducting more than one country case study on teachers’ attitudes. They conducted three country case studies in China, Finland and South Africa and they defended “while there is universality regarding the view that inclusive education is a fundamental way of realising quality education for all, there are clear differences in national education policies” (Malinen et al., ibid; pg 35). Another scholars, Kozleski et al., (2007) explained that the policies, contexts and cultures in different country would likely affect the outcome differently regarding the implementation of inclusive education. In addition, the most important thing raised by Yin (2003; pg 15) was to “explain the causal links in real life interventions that are too complex for the survey or experimental strategies” and therefore it makes it an ideal case to start with selected case studies first. He provided an example of how the case study of particular programme could result in certain variations in programme definition depending on the viewpoints of different actors. For example, establishment of an Apple computer factory in Singapore was the result of Singapore’s aggressive policy to attract the MNC to set up manufacturing centre in Singapore and this could constitute a case study of how national policies

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY influenced the inflow of foreign investment. By using the cultural-historical framework, we understand the complex dynamic country contextual factors that interact with the local implementation of inclusive education and teachers’ behaviours towards students with special needs in the regular school settings.

The reasons for why I chose Singapore and Japan for these country case studies are because they differ considerably in terms of history, culture, country size and their approaches towards the implementation of inclusive class practices for students with special needs. At the same time, it is important to recognise the similarities between two countries as both of them are developed Asian countries with stable economic growth, excellent education systems and large base of educated population. Also, they enjoy fair deal of freedom and democracy. Therefore it is reasonable to carry out two country case studies analysis to highlight some interesting features about their countries.

However we need to go beyond this comparison of similarities and differences in two countries and it is necessary to have two independent chapters on backgrounds of education system including inclusive education in Japan and Singapore. Before discussing further on two countries in greater details, I provide short rationales to why I decided to conduct the case studies on Japan and

Singapore and these would provide a ‘spoiler’ background for subsequent chapters.

First of all, it is necessary to fully understand the meaning of case study; according to Yin

(2003), it enables the researchers to examine the data within the specific context within smaller geographical area or smaller pool of subjects of study. This method is able to identify the contemporary teachers’ real-life experiences within the classroom through contextual analysis of limited number of events or conditions.

Secondly, there was an increasing amount of attention and interest in inclusive education in both countries and this was due to the aggressive international campaign supporting inclusion e.g.

CRPD, World Declaration on Education for All, Salamanca Statement, to name a few. These international mandates on inclusive education created profound spill-over effects on both countries as the governments had made sweeping reforms to their education systems. In the case of Japan, the government revised the School Education Law partially in April 2007 and replaced segregated

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY special education with special needs education. Along with the major reforms to education, more support could be given to each child with special need. After the ratification of CRPD in September

2007 and amendment of Basic Law for Persons with Disabilities in 2011, the government was slowly opening up to the proposal of introducing inclusive education (Fujii, 2014). Similarly,

Singapore went the similar path as Japan to implement inclusive education at the mainstream schools; Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Hsien Loong outlined his vision that pushed for greater inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream schools and this resulted in drastic change in policy towards more embrace of students with special needs and provision of more support for them in the main stream schools. Thaver and Lim (2014; pg 1 ) described this situation as “akin to the Berlin wall tumbling down as prior to this policy, the government was staunch in its stand that the needs of students with disabilities were better met in a separate schooling system if they were unable to cope with the demands of a mainstream setting”. This consequential event catalyzed the establishment of Enabling Masterplan committee that looked into ways to improve the lives of persons with special needs in all aspects and drastic reforms to education system e.g. introduction of Allied Education scheme to better support them in the regular classrooms.

However, despite all these drastic measures to ensure that support mechanisms are put in place to better support students with special needs, there were several challenges involved in both countries. Though the government has been pulling all the stops to implement inclusive education, in reality, the current education systems remain to be delivered in segregated or partial inclusion manner. In Japan, According to MEXT (2016), the number of special classes and special schools remains increasing and this kind of phenomenon does not align with the government’s vision of inclusive schools. Secondly, large class size remains a big hurdle to the implementation of inclusive education and it makes it onerous for Singaporean and Japanese teachers to provide dedicated attention to students with special needs. Lastly, many teachers in both countries felt that they were untrained or lacked of basic knowledge or skills to deal with their students. Therefore, these scenarios present the serious problem that present great disparity between the policies and actual realities.

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In line with Yin (2014)’s proposal for using case studies, it is particularly useful to understand how different country contexts in Japan and Singapore produce different variations of outcomes in terms of teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream school settings. Therefore, this kind of requirement fits neatly with the actual situation of my study as it involves smaller sample of teachers from selected schools in selected regions. This country case study approach is believed to challenge the original assumptions and to encourage debate about their education systems, thus, “making the strange familiar and the familiar strange” quoted by famous German poet Novalis (1772 – 1801).

SUMMARY

This chapter provides an overview of specific research methodologies that are selectively used in this two-country case study. This chapter began with the academic treatment about two exclusive domains occupied by quantitative and qualitative researches before discussing the mixed-methods research paradigm. It also includes my rationales of using the combination of quantitative and qualitative researches and briefly discusses the general research design which explains the steps taken to carry out the research from the start to the end of the research. Next, overview of research tools that are used to address four key research questions is discussed before moving to the data collection procedures (including pilot-testing, translation and verification of data).

Ethical issues involving the human subject are appropriately addressed before data analysis is being discussed exhaustively. Lastly, I have briefly stated my defense for selecting the two country case studies instead of comparative studies. I will present next two chapters that dedicate to the case study of Japan and Singapore discussing about their histories+ of inclusive education and policy development issues.

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CHAPTER 4. CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN JAPAN

２会（「るを連援学るみ提ー見徒教とおイ０報中。用続学級。を供ズ据に育をいン１告意性級、小整でにえ対的追てク４央の、（H24.7 し通・備き最てしニ求はル教特）てあ級中するも、てーす、ー育る別審おに学る、的そ、ズる同シく「支よ校多確の自のとじブ）議こ」こ多援るに様に時立あと場教よ会様学と初と指おで応点とるもで育りがな校導けが柔えで社幼に共シ）等学と（中必、る重軟る教会児、にス要びい特通要な指育参児個学テＭ等のっＥ教で別常で仕導的加童別ぶムあ場た支の組をニを生のこにＸ育」、あＴ分、科

4.1 INTRODUCTION

The above statement quoted from the MEXT (2014) website has posited its objectives to make the Japanese education inclusive for all students including students with special needs to create an inclusive place where everyone’s needs can be fully met and diversity can be nurtured and celebrated. Therefore, this chapter intends to provide its general background of contemporary issues pertaining to inclusive education in Japan with some general understanding about the policy development relating to inclusive and special education. This chapter is part of the series of two major case study chapters that discuss the background of inclusive education in two different developed Asian countries – Japan and Singapore – in different contexts and I hope that it is able to provide the readers with some rich insights of how two developed Asian countries paved their paths towards inclusive education. The background about inclusive education in Singapore will be discussed in Chapter 5.

The structure of this chapter focuses on the three main sections: history of special education in Japan, Japan’s policy reforms in the view of inclusive education, Japanese teachers’ general attitudes towards inclusive education before the summary section is being discussed.

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4.2 HISTORY OF EDUCATION

Up to date, eminent Japanese education scholars (Numano, 2013; Takuma, Ochiai, &

Munekata, 2000; Yamaguchi, n.d.) provided their detailed accounts about the history of education for students with special needs and these historical accounts revealed an unique insight of how the special education evolved over the time and how the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,

Science & Technology (MEXT) implemented their policy reforms in the light of global movement towards inclusive education.

4.2.1 Prior to and during Meiji period The earliest historical record about the special education could have existed to span the periods from the Heian period (794 – 1192) to Kamukura period (1192 – 1333). Based on the article written by scholars (Numano, 2013; Takuma, Ochiai, & Munekata, 2000), persons with disabilities especially the blind entered the Blind Buddhist priesthood but there was no detail about this issue.

During the Muromachi Period (1336 – 1573), the medieval associations for the blind were established in the 14th century. In the Edo period (1603 – 1868), there were small, private “temple schools” which were known as 寺子屋 terakoya which literally referred to temple huts that accepted children with disabilities (Nakamura, 2006). These temple school curriculums were based on the Buddhist teaching and the children were taught how to read and write during the period of

Muromachi (1573 – 1603). This kind of teaching pedagogy became popular throughout the period till end of Edo period and around 300 and 400 temple schools were established. According to the

Japanese scholar Ototake Iwazo’s interview research with elderly Japanese people who used to attend temple schools during the Edo period, he reported that around 8.6 per cent of 3,090 temple schools had students with special needs and most of the students with special needs had their hearing impairment (Nakamura, 2006).

Thereafter, in the early Meiji period (1868 – 1912), compulsory education for all able-bodied children were enacted by the government and this marked the beginning of universal education for all Japanese citizens to elevate the national literacy rate. This education system included a clause on

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the regulation of schools for the handicapped which was known as 廃人学校 Haijin gakkou.

Despite the negative connotation attached with the school for the handicapped, it did not stop the

Japanese philanthropist, Furukawa Tashiro, to establish the first private school for the deaf and mute in Japan in 1878. Eventually more schools for the deaf and mute were set up and the first Tokyo institute for the Blind and Deaf-mute was established in 1884 and in the following year, this school was recognized by the Ministry of Education as Tokyo School for the Blind and Deaf-mute. A group led by Nakamura Masano and Yamao Yoszo established the first Kyoto’s Institute for the Blind and

Deaf-mute in 1889 and this move had encouraged the establishment of more public schools for the children with special needs. According to Yamaguchi (n.d.), there was a first special class for children with intellectual disabilities that was set up in Matsumoto City, Nagano prefecture in 1890.

In response to increasing support for the establishment of public schools for the students with disabilities, the Ministry of Education began to regulate these schools in the Second Revised

Elementary Ordinance and began to add more kindergartens, libraries and essential facilities to support their learning needs. The next Third Revised Elementary School Ordinance of 1900 was passed to stipulate that children with disabilities were either exempted or given deferments from compulsory education. Therefore, it created a new set of problems of how to deal with those children with special needs who were not included in the compulsory education act.

4.2.2 Meiji restoration and Taisho period During the Meiji restoration, the first public institution for the children with intellecual disabilities was eventually set up and the Ministry of Education began to separate Tokyo School for the Blind and Deaf-mute into two independent schools for the blind and deaf-mute in 1910. This separation move allowed a greater autonomy of planning of curriculum and teaching pedagogies for two separate schools. After the end of Meiji period and the beginning of Taisho period (1912 – 1926), the first institution for the children with physical and intellectual disabilties was established and it was run independently by the charitable organisations. Since Taisho period witnessed the first flowering of democracy in Japan, it allowed more civil societies to advocate for provision of special education to for all Japanese children with special needs and improvement of quality of special

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education. The special education began to be subsumed under the purview of Ministry of Education and the authories passed the ordinances to make it compulsory for every prefecture including

Hokkaido to establish schools for the students with special needs. This began the first official separation of special education into elementary and secondary divisions and it became widespread throughout Japan with more special schools and special classes for children with various kinds of special needs in 1930. The first official Takinogawa School in Tokyo (Kita-campus) was set up for students with intellectual disabilities and then this was followed by another similar schools,

Shirakawa School in Kyoto in 1909 and Toka School in Osaka in 1916. Tokyo Muncipal Komei

School for the students with physical disabilities and other kinds of disabilities was opened in 1932 but it only provided elementary classes for the students. These scenarios clearly showed the marked evolution of such schools from charity point of view to public education (Numano, 2013).

4.2.3 Showa period and years following the Second World War There was no updated record about the special education from the beginning of Showa period to the beginning of Second World War. However, Yamaguchi (n.d.) reported in his article that because of the rise of militarism and the Second World War, the situation surrounding the special education was not favorable for the students with special needs. Moreover, Numano (2013) wrote that the Ministry of Education tried to enact its legislation to make the education for the deaf and mute compulsory. But due to the financial issues, such measures to legislate the compulsory education for this group of students were not successfully passed.

At the end of Second World War, the Ministry of Education passed the School Education

Law and Funsdamental Law of Education that were based on the principle of equal opportunity for all children with disabilities. This move began to rename the schools for the deaf-mute as school for the deaf and this finally made the education for the deaf children compulsory. At the same time, other two types of schols were also incorporated into School Education Law as special school for the blind and disabled schools (for other types of disabilities). These unprecedented act of reorganising these special schools marked the beginning of enactment of law pertaining to “Special Needs

Education” 特殊教育. Furthermore the regulations were also carried to provide special classes in

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the regular elementary, middle and high schools for students with mild disabilities. In 1956, the Law

Governing Special Measures for the Improvement and Maintenance of Public Special Schools for

Children with Mental or Physical Disadvantage were eventually passed into law, resulting in the increase of number of special schools catering to students with wider range of disabilities.

As special schools catering to students with special needs grew rapidly, it resulted in greater demand for better quality of educational services and assessment for them. Subsequently, the

National Institute of Special Needs Education (NISE) was set up in 1971 to conduct comprehensive research on special education for students with disabilities. The researchers from NISE had proposed for systematization of support for the special education teachers and establishment of an agency which was responsible to oversee the provision of special materials and devices for students with disabilities. By 1978, the previous policies on school deferment or exemption from compulsory education were eventually phased out and in the following years, the education for all children with special needs was made mandatory. After 9 years, Tsukuba College of Technology was established and became the first national junior college for the deaf and blind students. It was regarded as the first junior college in the world that accepted the visually-impaired students and it became the full-fledged four-year college. Its name was subsequently renamed as National Corporation Tsukuba

University of Technology in 2005.

4.2.4 Post 1990s and 2000s Aligning with the international trend of integration, Japan revised the enforcement legislation of the School Education Law to implement resource room system in the regular schools (Takahashi

& Matsuzaki, 2014). In this context, resource room system was intended to support students with special needs who were currently attending the regular classes (only limited to certain disability groups except students with autism, learning disability and ADHD). During the certain period of time, this group of students was instructed in the special settings in the resource room by special education teachers under the special education programme. Again, with some partial revision to the enforcement regulation of School Education Law, the resource room system began to encompass previously left-out group of students with autism, learning disability and ADHD.

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In 2002, the School Education Law Enforcement Ordinance was again amended to reflect the severity of disabilities when it concerned with the placement of students with special needs in the regular schools. It also modified the set of criteria for the enrolment of students with special needs to elementary and middle schools, taking into consideration their severity of special needs and other important factors. Besides that, the specialists must be consulted to ensure that the parents and the child with special needs made their right decision about the right educational placement.

4.3 MOVING TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN JAPAN

With the further revisions to the School Education Law Enforcement Ordinance in 2007, the law recognised that the parents or guardian should be consulted on their placement of students with special needs after round consultations with the professionals and experts. It was the positive sign that the rights was allowed to be exercised by the parents concerning with the placement of their child with special needs unlike in the past when the parents often had no say on this educational placement issue. These numerous revisions to School Education Law Enforcement Ordinance marked a watershed moment that witnessed the birth of inclusive education in Japan. As the scholars,

Hodge, Sato, Mukoyama, & Kozub (2013, pg. 333), quoted: “inclusive education was seen to be progressing, albeit slowly in Japan which means that students with and without disabilities are now more likely to be educated together than in previous times”.

On 3 May 2008, the Convention was finally enforced to cover all persons with different types of disabilities. Japan signed the Convention in May 2008 but has yet ratified it. In response to the universal call to action for Inclusive Education, Japan set up the “Ministerial Board for Disability

Policy Reform” committee in December 2009 and this high-level disability committee consisted of

State members, being headed by the Prime Minister. The steering committee was tasked to carry out far-reaching painful reforms to restructure the current education system for the persons with special needs. Domestic legislation was drafted to meet the basic requirements specified in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The committee convened a “Committee for Disability

Policy Reform” in January 2010 to spearhead their efforts to improve the education structure for the

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disabled students. Under new direction towards achieving the Inclusive Education in Japan, the

Committee drafted the Basic Direction for Promotion of the Disability Policy Reform of the System for Persons with Disabilities, which was based on the first round of recommendations in early 2010.

On 29 June 2010, the Cabinet gave the green light approval to the Basic Direction for Promotion of the Disability Policy Reform. The next important task was to “aim to submit a bill for the Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities to the 2011 Ordinary Session of the Diet” (MEXT, 2012). The

Committee made further revisions to Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities and in April 2011, the government eventually submitted the bill on the Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities to the Diet.

The Cabinet approved the bill and the law was partially enforced on 5 August 2011.

Under the revised Basic Law for Persons with Disabilities, Article 16 states:

1. The Government and the local governments shall take necessary measures to improve

and enrich contents and method of education in accordance with their age, capacity and

characteristics of disability by paying consideration to educate students with disabilities

and student without disabilities together as much as possible.

2. The Government and the local governments shall provide sufficient information to

students with disabilities and their guardians and respect their intentions as much as

possible to achieve the aforementioned purpose.

3. The Government and the local governments shall promote mutual understanding

between students with disabilities and students without disabilities through positively

implementing joint activities and learning.

4. The Government and the local governments shall promote research, secure human

resources, improve their skills, supply appropriate teaching materials, [and] improve

school facilities and other environment for education of persons with disabilities.

(MEXT, 2013; pg. 21)

The Central Council of Education, MEXT had organised various rounds of discussion that focused on implementation of inclusive education and they had already put forward their 2013/2014 school year proposal to establish a proper inclusive education system (Forlin et al., 2015). One of the

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important milestones concerning the inclusive education was to rename Special Education as Special

Needs Education to reflect the greater emphasis on provision of support for students with special needs.

4.3.1 From Special Education to Special Needs Education The rationales behind the transition from “Special Education” to “Special Need Education” outlined the need to construct a society where every individual, regardless of disability, should be equally respected and be given their equal opportunities to participate fully in the society (Nakamura

& Oka, 2007). The Special Education system used to work on the education for students with special needs but there was lack of support mechanism in place for their learning needs. It, thus, resulted in many students lagging behind the class and limited interaction opportunities among their peers.

Recognising this problem, the MEXT decided to focus on their “needs” instead of “disabilities”

(Murata & Yamaguchi, 2010).

According to Tetsuya (2013), perennial decrease in fertility rate and burgeoning ageing population hurt compulsory school enrolment rate in Japan, as every year the schools witnessed the downward decline in the number of students. On the contrary, due to the partial enforcement of disability law, the number of children with special needs actually increased by 15,000 – 20,000. Due to the revamped disability framework, more students with mild disabilities were diagnosed. It led to more support for students with different kinds of disabilities including learning disabilities (LD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism. These indicated circumstances collectively prompted the Cabinet to seriously relook into School Education Act and other laws for the persons with special needs.

Prior to 2006, the schools for different disabilities (as shown in Figure 4-1) were categorized under “Special Education Schools (特殊教育)”. After the major revamp on April 1, 2007, the merger of segregated system of schools for blind, deaf and other kinds of impairment into one system called

Schools for Special Needs Education (特別支援教育), intended to provide holistic supports for students with all kinds of disabilities. Numano (2013; pg. 2) explained that the name change from

Special Education School to School for Special-Needs Education

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Figure 4-1: Reforms to school system for students with special needs

School System Reform Change from Specific Type of Disability to Collective Type of Disability

Year 2006 After Year 2007

School for the School for Deaf Special Needs Education

-Able to teach School for the Increasing students with number of Blind multiple students disabilities with

multiples -Work as a centre disabilities School for of education for Students with children with Intellectual disabilities Disabilities, Physical Disabilities and Health Impairment Source: Adapted from MEXT (2016).

At schools for Special Needs Education, the students were taught with the same textbook content as in mainstream schools but teaching methodologies needed to be customized to suit the disabled students’ needs. Self-independence activities (自立活動) were taught at the high school to imbibe life skills and communication skills in them.

As of 2013, out of 10,400,000 students being enrolled in compulsory education schools,

302,000 students with special needs enrolled in schools for special needs education and regular schools. 66,000 students attended schools for special needs education. Out of the 88,400 students with special needs, 16,400 students received instruction through special support services in resource rooms while others made their weekly trips to attend classes for special needs education. In total, all students with special needs accounted for 2.9% of the total number of students of the same age as shown in Figure 4-2.

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Figure 4-2: Statistics on students with special needs in Japan after the major reform

Special Needs Education System in Japan (Part of Compulsory Education Act)

As of 2013, 10,400,000 students are enrolled in compulsory education schools

Schools for Special Needs Education

0.63%  Deafness App 66,000  Blindness students  Intellectual Disability  Physically Disability

Regular Schools

1.58% 2.9% App Regular Classes App 164,000 302,000 students  Team Teaching students

 Small-Group Classes

 Special Support Services in Resource Rooms

Classes for Special Needs Education 0.69%

App 72,000 students

Source: Adapted from MEXT (2016).

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4.3.2 Major Changes to Plans in Year 2013 and 2014 While making a sturdy progress towards the goal of implementing inclusive education in

Japan, there were several milestones including the major revision to the enrolment system for public schools in 2013 and 2014.

Model School, Model Region (Sharing Platform), School Cluster

Every school was required to put in relevant measures to look into specific issues relating to

“rational consideration” (合理的配慮) paid to the students with special needs and also to develop a platform for good practices of inclusive education. Besides that, it recommended that the retired principals or professionals, who used to work in disability sector, be encouraged to re-join the disability education sector as Special Needs Education Advisors. Robust database system that captured relevant information pertaining to students with special needs for the future researches and policy directives was established for the future researches.

A) Model School concept

The MEXT envisaged developing its all-encompassing system to cater to the needs of children with special needs from childhood to adulthood and it ensured that no child with disability was left behind in the education sector. In 2013, 50 public and private schools were designated as model schools to provide necessary education support for them. Out of 50 model schools, there were

29 primary schools, 7 secondary schools and 8 high schools, which provide quality support for children with special needs. Information on these designated schools was published on MEXT website. Special Needs Education Coordinators were also deployed to offer their school life management support and other disability-related supports at the model schools.

B) Model Regions (Sharing Platform for Collaborative Learning)

Collaborative learning platform was set up between the School for the Special Needs

Education and regular schools that offered special classes for disabled students. Schools for the

Special Needs Education functioned as resource centres to provide necessary support for all primary and secondary school teachers, consultancy services, collaborative research supports for research

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organizations and teacher trainings. This platform also involved the active participation of parents

(guardians) of disabled students so as to foster an open dialogue among different stakeholders to heighten better awareness of children with special needs. According to MEXT (2012), MEXT had already rolled out some courses at the teaching colleges for aspirant teachers to pursue careers in disability education sector.

C) School Cluster

Establishment of school clusters at the regional levels provided an opportunity to incorporate the best practices and developed creative teaching strategies. Numano (n.d.) observed that the schools for Special Needs Education needed to expand their outreach efforts and support to all local children with special needs at regular schools within local school clusters. Furthermore, stronger collaboration with medical, nursing care, labour and other related organizations were encouraged to facilitate sharing of information and synergy of data among them.

Provision of various support strategies

Various support strategies were discussed and implemented to assist the children with special needs. Early intervention programmes were put in place to detect their disabilities at much earlier age so that therapy support and appropriate measures could be provided to the child in a timely fashion. Apart from it, MEXT (2012) highlighted that a robust financial system was needed to expand its provision of financial assistances to needy disabled students. The financial onus on lower income families could be alleviated. Children with severe special needs, who could not fulfil their daily needs, should receive their proper competent remedial medical measures and special care nursing facilities. Across different prefectures in Japan, strong networking among schools and related disability organizations should be forged to ensure information and resource sharing.

Teachers of Special Needs Education

The Japanese government felt that it was timely to re-evaluate the teaching training modules at teaching institutes. It covered the structure of teacher training programmes, recruitment drive and deployment of teachers at schools for Special Needs Education. Depending on types and levels of schooling and special needs education, prospective students were required to attend different kinds

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of trainings and they needed to obtain relevant teaching certificates. According to Numano (2010)’s report on Teacher Training and Certificate System, a prospective teaching student must obtain the minimum number of credits at junior colleges, universities or graduate schools. There were three main types of teaching certificates: Regular Teaching Certificate, Special Teaching Certificate, and

Temporary Teaching Certificate. Special Needs Education teachers were required to acquire both general teaching certificate for certain educational levels and Special School Education teaching certificate.

However, in the current situation, the shortage of qualified teachers created an urgent need for more teachers to teach at more schools for Special Needs Education and regular schools.

Currently, about 70% of teachers at Special Needs Schools acquired Special Needs Education teacher certificate while the rest was not properly certified (Numano, N.d.). Hence, there was an urgent push for more teachers to attend appropriate trainings to obtain Special Needs Education teacher certificate.

Implementation of Assistive Technologies for Inclusive Education

Effective use of Assistive Technologies (AT) was strongly encouraged at national level to help the disabled children cope with their learning at school. They helped to minimize the difficulties that were often encountered by disabled children for example, text-to-speech synthesizers, digital textbooks and Braille embossers. Common-shared databases that captured necessary information should be properly set up for the future researches.

Major revision to School Education Law

Another important major revision was made to the School Education Law; few more suggestions were raised by the committee members to clarify what the local school districts were anticipated to decide the educational placement of students with special needs. According to the

MEXT (2013)’s report, the following changes were incorporated into the School Education law:

1) Local school districts are not supposed to make decisions for the placement of children

who have disabilities based on their results from educational/psychological

assessments;

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2) Local school districts need to listen to opinions from parents, educators, medical

professionals, psychologists, and principals regarding where students might enrol;

3) The student’s severity of disability and the educational/social needs are to be analysed

in order to make decisions to enrol students at either ordinary schools, special education

schools at ordinary schools, or in the regular classroom with additional resource room

supports.

Again, in 2014, there was another partial amendment to Cabinet Order for Enforcement of the School Education Law to allow the children with special needs to choose their preferred school placement at either special school or ordinary school (Forlin et al., 2015).

4.3.3 Long march to disability rights in Japan With all measures to ensure that the inclusive education practices (legislative and policy issues) were well in place, Japan has delayed for seven years before ratifying the CRPD on January

20, 2014, making it as 141st country to affirm the rights and to protect the dignity of persons with disability (Ree, 2015). Although Japan has finally ratified the CRPD, Japan felt that long delay in ratifying the CRPD had put itself in shame as many human rights advocates felt that ratification at this time was considered long overdue.

Next, Japan had to face the pressing task to implement concrete steps that were required to adhere to UN CRPD and finally enacted the Act for Eliminating Discrimination against Persons with

Disabilities on April 1, 2016. Ree (2015) wrote that this Act served to prohibit any discriminatory treatment and to make it compulsory for government agencies and private agencies to provide reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. Currently there is no clear indication that the government will take action against any form of discriminatory acts except for the situation which displays the sign “No people with disabilities” (Otake, 2016). For example, currently there is no law in place that stipulates every school to provide sign language interpreter for the hearing-impaired students. Rather, they have issued the rough guidelines that determine certain acts would deem to be discriminatory to the persons with disabilities. If any organisation was found to run afoul of discrimination law, they would be slapped with hefty fines of up to 200, 000 yen.

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Notwithstanding all these punitive measures to prohibit the discriminatory acts against the persons with disabilities, there are many loopholes that Japan must look into to ensure the protection of persons with disabilities and Japan has given itself three years to periodically review the law in order to beef up the combat of discriminatory acts against the persons with disabilities.

4.4 TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

The background information about general perception held by the Japanese teachers and teacher training programmes are discussed in this subsection.

4.4.1 Statistics of schools, students with special needs enrolled and teachers This section discusses the general statistics concerning the schools that enroll the students with special needs, number of students with special needs enrolled and teachers who teach students with special needs. These figures are based on the (MEXT, 2016)’s latest statistical report.

Figure 4-3: Numbers of schools for students with special needs

No of schools for Special Needs Students vs Year 1200 Total

1000

ｓ） Local 800 Prefectural

600 Noof school 400 National

学校数（ 200 Private

年（Year)

計（Total) 国立（National) 公立 (Local) うち都道府県立 (Prefectural) 私立（Private)

Source: MEXT (2016), Created by author

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Figure 4-3 shows the gradual increase of special schools for the students with different kinds of disabilities. However, there was no change in the number of national and private schools since

1980 as the government focused on building more local and prefectural schools so that students with special needs could travel nearer their schools.

Figure 4-4: Population of students with special needs vs Year

Population of students wih special needs vs Years

160,000 ) Total 140,000 120,000

学生数 Local 100,000

80,000 High school 60,000 National Private 40,000 Primary school

20,000 Middle school Number Number students of ( 0

Year （年）

計（Total) 国立（National) 公立 (Local) 私立（Private) Kindergarten (幼稚園) Primary school (小学部） Middle school (中学部） High school （高等部）

Source: MEXT (2016), created by author

Figure 4-4 shows the increase in population of students with special needs over the years. It can be seen that local schools enrolled the most number of students with special needs followed by national schools. National and private schools has the lowest enrollment of students with special needs.

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Table 4-1: Enrolment of students with special needs Special Schools Special needs No of students with special needs (特別支援学校数) classroom Total Kindergarten Primary Middle High (特別支援学級数) (計) (幼稚園) school school school (小学部） (中学部) (高等部) Total 1,114 34,535 137,895 1,499 38,845 31,088 66,462 (総計) VI (視) 63 1,199 2,876 192 579 441 1,664 HI (聾) 87 1.782 5,801 1,943 1,177 1,627 15,636 ID (知) 532 16,295 77,789 62 19,317 16,870 41,540 PD (肢) 131 4,167 11,473 30 5,016 3,007 3,420 Others (他) 301 11,092 13,926 161 11,990 9,593 4,202 Source: MEXT (2016), Modified by author

Table 4-1 shows the breakdown of students with special needs by educational levels and

primary school students constitute the most of the population of students with special needs. There

are around 35,000 special needs classrooms in the regular schools. Students with intellectual

disabilities constitute the largest group of students in special schools and special needs classrooms.

Figure 4-5: No of teachers teaching students with special needs vs Year

No of teachers vs Year

90,000 Total 80,000 70,000 Local 60,000

教員数） 50,000 40,000 30,000 National 20,000 10,000 Private

0 Noteachers of (

Year （年）

計（Total) 国立（National) 公立 (Local) 私立（Private)

Source: MEXT (2016), created by author

Figure 4-5 shows the increase of teachers teaching students with special needs over the year

with the largest group of teachers teaching at the local schools. It corresponds with the largest group

of students with special needs being enrolled at local schools. Again private and national schools

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4.4.2 Teachers training According to Takuma et al. (2000), school teachers were required to be trained at the university or junior colleges that were approved by the MEXT. Most of the primary school teachers attend four-year courses at national universities while others are trained at private or other institutions. Middle school teachers are trained at national, private universities or junior colleges but high school teachers are required to take teaching courses only at universities and graduate schools.

In order to obtain special education teaching certificate, students must obtain from one of these educational-level teaching certificate (kindergarten, primary, middle or high school teaching certificate) and then they have to meet the minimum requirements by obtaining required numbers of credits from designated special education courses. In addition to the course work, they are required to complete at least a two-week practicum at selected school and teach selected subject areas. Up to date, there is no official national course on inclusive education in Japan (Forlin et al., 2015) except for some private or prefectural teaching institutions that offer ad-hoc courses on inclusive education.

4.4.3 Teachers’ views about inclusion education According to Forlin et al. (2015), they found that there was limited research on regular and special education teachers’ attitudes but it seemed that special educators had more positive towards inclusion of students with special needs due to their past trainings in special needs education and relevant teaching experience with students with special needs. Cochran (1998) found in his research that the most significant predictors of teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusion were likely to be associated with their past contact experiences, perceived school supports for their teaching and previous successful teaching experience with students with students with special needs.

Another research study that investigated their concerns about inclusion of students with special needs showed various concerns: students with special needs might not be able to catch up with their lessons, lack of confidence to handle students with special needs, lack of resources to support their learning needs, lack of support teachers and difficult curriculums that were deemed to be unsuitable for them (Mitchell, 2002). Another scholar, Sato, Hodge, Murata and Maeda (2007) cited lack of adequate facilities or adaptive equipment, lack of disabled-friendly infrastructure and inadequate

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human support. These above-mentioned findings confirmed that Japanese teachers had some degree of reservation about inclusion of students with special needs.

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

The evolution of special education for the students with special needs from segregated setting has come a long way even before the Pacific War where the first school for the deaf in Japan was established in Kyoto by Furukawa Tashiro (Nakamura, 2006). Because of the modernisation that marched towards the inclusive education and greater call for amalgamation of students with special needs with normal peers at the regular schools, Japan is constantly pressurized to heed the call to make its radical reform to the education system that houses segregated and mainstream education system separately. Despite the howling calls from defenders of special education, Japan, nevertheless, introduced various measures to ensure that the children with special needs will have their rights safeguarded to be educated at the regular classrooms. The government education committee remarked that the new “system enables children or without disabilities to study together under the aim of developing respect for the differences in people and maximally developing the mental and physical abilities of children regardless of the presence or absence of disabilities, and to realise a free society in which every person can effectively participate.” (Numano, N.d.).

The last question on my mind is how far Japan can fulfil its promise to legal obligation to ensure the rights of persons and children with special needs can be truly safeguarded and how much the Japanese government put in to create truly inclusive society for all and inclusive school for all children regardless of their disability. In order to strengthen the legislation on the rights of the disabled people, it could be better if an independent human right watchdog is introduced to provide neutral consultancy service to the government agencies and to create an independent channel for the persons with disabilities to air their grievances against the errant companies.

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“Every society has some members with disabilities. How the society treats the disabled, takes care of them, and helps them integrate into the mainstream, reflects the kind of society it is. We want ours to be a society that cares for its members; one that does not ignore the needs of those who are born or afflicted with disabilities.” - Lee (2004) when he became the third Prime Minister in 2004

5.1 INTRODUCTION

Year 2004 marked a watershed in special and inclusive education policy as Prime Minister

Lee outlined his bold vision of Singapore of being a fair, meritocratic inclusive society whether in education, housing or healthcare for all citizen regardless of races, religions, disabilities and any forms of differences. Singapore has achieved so much progress and prosperity since the independence in 1965 and many citizens have their greater access to better quality of housing, healthcare, fair employment and world-class education. Besides that, Singapore wanted to move beyond its past achievement to create a more inclusive society that was based on tapestry of different cultures and religious faiths. However the question is how inclusive Singapore has truly become so far since PM Lee first outlined his vision of Singapore of being an inclusive society and how

Singapore education system has been evolved to actually meet the needs of students with special needs.

Therefore, this chapter provides the contemporary description of the background and history of how special and inclusive educations evolved over the decades in Singapore. Current programmes and practices to meet the needs of students with special needs and teacher trainings are also discussed. It discusses four parts: general background of special education, trends of education policies, actions taken to move towards inclusive education and general attitudes towards inclusive education.

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5.2 GENERAL BACKGROUND OF EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE

For the past 20 years, many countries have been actively pushing for inclusion for students with special needs at the regular schools especially in the Western countries e.g. the United States and the United Kingdom which were instrumental in shaping and defining inclusion which distinguished itself from what was formerly called mainstreaming or integration. For example, 1981

Education Act was enforced in UK and IDEA in US (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) were enacted in 1997 and then revised in 2004 (Norwich, 2008). Not only had these inclusion education leaders pioneered the field of inclusive education, many European countries e.g. Norway,

Sweden, Portugal, Italy and Spain) and few Asian countries (e.g. South Korea, Japan, China and

Brunei Darussalam) had already enforced their legislation and guidelines to support inclusive education measures. In Japan, all students with special needs are required to receive their compulsory education under the Fundamental Law of Education and the School Education Law

(National Institute of Special Needs Education, 2011). China has already implemented the ‘Learning in Regular Classroom (LRC)’ to mandate the provision of compulsory education for students with disabilities (Deng & Holdsworth, 2007). In South Korea, Special Education Promotion Act (SEPA) was implemented in 1997 to include students with disabilities in the regular classrooms (Kwon,

2005). Brunei Darussalam had already carried out the curriculum reforms to make inclusive education as one of the features of compulsory education in 1996 (Koay & Sim, 2004).

In the context of Singapore, although Singapore has just revised its Compulsory Education

Act to include the group of students with special needs on November 4, 2016, there is no current legislature to mandate the provision of necessary support for the students with special needs at the regular schools in the least restrictive manner or equal opportunities for people with disabilities within regular school environments.

In summary, the inclusive education makes its natural emergence in the local education landscape in response to the adoption of its pragmatic approach and to the revision of Compulsory

Education Act to include students with special needs to foster a more cohesive society. The core

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belief ‘the people are its only and most precious resource’ Tan & Konza (2006; pg. 133) lays the foundation that Singapore’s survival and future depends mainly on the people in order to build and shape the “future of the nation” .

5.3 TRENDS OF EDUCATIONAL POLICIES

In the recent years, Singapore made great strides in improving quality of education for the students with special needs. Two major key events highlighted the major changes to special education landscape. First, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s inaugural speech in 2004 further affirmed his support for more inclusive society, catalysing reforms of disability-related policy and service delivery for the students with disabilities. It resulted in throwing up of all possibilities within the special and mainstream school systems to ensure that the needs of disabled students were not largely ignored. It also looked into the current financial structure and refurbishment of school facilities to ensure better service delivery to them.

Second, the establishment of Enabling Masterplan committee that was helmed by high-level stakeholders from private and government sectors looked into development of programmes and services for persons with disabilities. The first Enabling Masterplan was spearheaded in 2007 to discuss broad areas ranging from prevalence rate of persons with disabilities to disability sports during the period from 2007 to 2011 (Ministry of Social and Family Development, 2006). One of the key focuses on disability issues was Early Intervention and Education for students with special needs.

Recently, the Enabling Masterplan committee convened again in 2011 to discuss disability issues for the next cycle from 2012 to 2016. Among the set of selected recommendations tabled at the second round of Enabling Masterplan meeting, they were a) study of inclusive school models in different countries; b) robust funding structure for students with special needs at all institutes of higher learning; c) more support for students with special needs and d) improvement in reward systems for mainstream schools for disabled students (Ministry of Social and Family Development, 2006). The most recent third Enabling Masterplan has been just unveiled to the public in late 2016 after the committee’s consultation with public over eight months and they have already put forward 20

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recommendations related to disability issues. More details will be discussed in the later section of this chapter (Ministry of Social and Family Development, 2016).

5.3.1 Brief history of education for Special Needs Students In the late 1940s, special education began with groups of volunteers providing special education classes at Trafalgar Home for children with leprosy (Lim & Nam, 2000). Since then, the voluntary associations and public hospitals began to emerge and served different disability groups, starting with the visual impairment followed by intellectual disabled students in 1963 (Yeo et al.,

2011). Figure 5-1 outlines the historical development of special education.

Figure 5-1: Timeline for the establishment of social organisations in Singapore

•British Red Cross set up a home for physically challenged students 1949

•British Red Cross also set up a school for the Deaf students 1951

•Association for the Blind set up a blind school 1956

•Association for Spastic Children was set up to look after the welfare of children with 1957 cerebral palsy.

•Singapore Council of Social Service (now National Council for Social Service) was set up 1958 to manage the Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs)

•Singapore Association for Retarded Children was established and later renamed 1962 Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS)

Source: Poon, Musti-Ra, & Wettasinghe (2013), Created by author

Those episodes marked the beginning of establishment of services for the students with mild disabilities under School Social Work and School Psychological Services Branch in the Ministry of

Education (MOE) in 1970 and Child Psychiatric Clinic in the Ministry of Health (MOH) in 1972

(Poon et al., 2013). In the 1970s, only few special schools in Singapore offered special education services to students with sensory, physical and intellectual disabilities and more special schools were

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established to meet the needs of students with more specific disability types like autism spectrum disorders and multiple disabilities in the 1980s and 1990s. According to Lim and Tan (1999) , there were around 11 special education schools that were managed by 7 voluntary welfare organisations for different kind of disability groups. The funding was wholly managed by one of the government bodies, Singapore Council of Social Service (Quah, 1990). After 1988, Singapore Council of Social

Service changed its name to the National Council of Social Services (NCSS) which is still currently running till now. This marked the establishment of the tripartite relationship among special schools, voluntary organisations that were responsible to manage special schools and government bodies i.e.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) and the National Council of Social Services (NCSS) that managed the funding of the schools.

The earlier trace of possible inclusive education, though not formally acknowledged, could be found in the February 1988 report by the Advisory Council for the Disabled. The Council was tasked to look into problems with an emphasis on assisting the disabled persons to integrate into the society. One of the recommendations surfaced by the Advisory Council for the Disabled (1988; pg.

37 - 38) stated:

“Whenever appropriate and feasible, special education should be provided within the regular educational system. A child should only be placed in a special school if [he/she] cannot be well educated in a regular school.” Placement of a student with special need depended on one’s abilities and educational needs.

Children with moderate, severe or profound disabilities were only taught in special schools while other children with mild disability were allowed to be taught at all levels of regular schools (Lim &

Tan, 1999). Since then, it began to show the indication that Singapore had already embarked on the path towards integration/inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools. For example,

20 primary and secondary schools were designated to be retrofitted with ramps, lifts and disabled-friendly toilets for students with disabilities. Members of Parliaments had tabled the issues at the several Parliamentary Debates Singapore (1998) to include students with special needs as far as possible in regular schools. Despite the concerted efforts to include students with special needs in the regular schools, only disabled students with high functionality abilities were allowed to study at

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the regular schools. They received their learning supports at their regular schools from certain

VWOs which provided two main services: TEACH ME (Therapy and Education Assistance for

Children in Mainstream Education) and REACH ME programmes (Lim & Tan, 1999).

Figure 5-2 described the educational pathways for students with special needs and depending

on their types and severity of disability, the child could avail himself/herself to several options that

could best fit their education needs.

Figure 5- 2: Educational pathways for students with special needs

Legend : ATC = Approved Training Centre ATO = Approved Training Organisation ESS = Employability Skills System GOS = Grace Orchard School ISC = ITE Skills Certificate KS = Katong School MS = Metta School RC = Rainbow Centre NITEC = National ITE Certificate PS = Pathlight School TS = Tanglin School WPL = Workplace Literacy WPN = Workplace Numeracy WPS = Workplace Skills WSQ = Work Skills Qualification * Mountbatten Vocational School (ATC): Eligibility applies

Source: Adapted from Ministry of Education (2013b)

5.3.2 Bumpy road to inclusive education Despite the ongoing efforts to include more students with special needs (of varying degrees

of disability), the role of special education remained outside the boundary of mainstream education

because of the dualistic nature of two dissimilar education system and irreconcilable differences

between them that posed resistance to inclusion (Lim & Quah, 2004). In 2003, the Compulsory

Education Act was passed in 2003 to mandate that all children born after 1st January 1996 were

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required to attend primary schools. However, child with special needs did not fall within the purview of special education and lack of special education per se coupled with inherent dualistic nature of education system led to exacerbation of inclusion challenge in Singapore. Rao (1999) observed that there was an increasing tendency for the regular school teachers to refer children with disabilities even with mild disabilities to the special schools and they reasoned that these children with special needs had shorter attention spans, behavioural problems, emotional outbursts and frequent failures that made it unsuitable for them to be included in the mainstream classrooms. Rao (1999) also found that once those students were enrolled in the special schools, their chances to be re-schooled in the regular schools appeared virtually inexistent due to lack of special education legislation and onerous process of case-referral assessment.

However, Lim and Tan (2001) argued in their paper that absence of legislation on the provision of special education was not the only sole impediment to the implementation of inclusion in Singapore. They identified three main societal forces at work in the education system: 1) marketization of education system to encourage stiff academic competition; 2) perception of inclusive education as a threat to the school ranking league tables; and 3) obsession with education elitism. These forces were believed to influence the public perception towards the school placement of students with special needs.

Singapore is often singled out as an exemplary model for the rest of the world to emulate in terms of stellar academic performance, efficiency in doing business, robust economy and its transparent and corrupt-free government. In terms of education performance, Singapore is constantly placed on top of international education rankings, sharing the top positions with educational powerhouses, e.g. China, Hong Kong and Japan. The most recent PISA results were released in

December 2016 and Singapore topped all three assessment subjects – Mathematics, Reading and

Science (Hunt, 2016). Besides that, according to the International Baccalaureate foundation (IB),

Singapore ranked the top highest number of perfect scorers in International Baccalaureate, accounting for 61% of the perfect scores worldwide in 2016 (Ng & Chia, 2017). These examples bear the strong testimony of how Singapore education system has pushed very hard to strive for

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excellence in the academic standings. However, the question begets, “So what if Singapore tops all the international academic examinations every year and does it really reflect the actual ability of the majority of Singaporeans students?”

Singapore, however, lags behind the developed countries and even developing countries that provide even better services for the disabled students. The prospect for inclusion remained bleak until 1994 when the prime minister made his inaugural speech to call for greater inclusion of people with disabilities in the society. Singapore government recognised this problem that Singaporeans were too obsessive with the academic achievements and they were trying to encourage the schools to lessen their focus on their academic abilities. Rather the schools were persuaded to look beyond the academic assessment to consider the holistic development of the child. By 21st century, things were looking up for students with special needs as more ministries began to realise the importance of including students with special needs and provided more support for students with special needs within the general education system.

Following this, SG$200 million (roughly US$100 million) was allocated as part of the education funds to support teacher training for both regular and special school teachers (Lee, 2004b) and this funding drive was helmed by MOE to recruit a cadre of support teachers in mainstream school which was known as Special Needs Officers (later renamed Allied Educators, Learning and

Behavioural Support (AED LBS) in 2009) to collaborate with regular school teachers (Thaver &

Lim, 2014). The second initiative was to identify a selected group of regular school teachers in some mainstream schools to undergo trainings as Teachers Trained in Special Needs (TSNs). The TSNs act as resources teachers to support students with special needs in their schools (Ministry of Education,

2015a). Lastly the last initiative was to identify and designate certain schools with facilities to support students with special needs. Up to date, there are 86 secondary schools with certain facilities that support certain types of disability groups. For example, Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School can only support students with visual impairment while Boon Lay Secondary School could provide an integration programme for hearing-impaired students only. About 25% of them provide full handicapped facilities for students with mobility disabilities. Most of these designated schools are

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able to accommodate the needs of students with mild disabilities. As for the primary schools, 56 of them provide comprehensive handicapped facilities for primary schools with mobility disabilities.

Aside from these initiatives piloted by MOE, National Institute of Education (NIE) – a teaching college in Singapore – also gears towards rolling out disability-related training programmes to train all pre-service teachers. They are introduced to 12-hour module within a mandatory core course on disability issue. In-service teachers have their opportunities to undergo professional development programmes which help them to plan, adapt and differentiate their teaching instructions to meet diverse needs of students in the regular school settings e.g. a practical course on Autism Spectrum

Disorders: Characteristics and Classroom Intervention. Not only NIE provides practicum trainings for all teachers, they also provide executive leadership programmes that cover disability issues for principals and other school leaders.

In 2006, the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (renamed Ministry of

Sports and Family Development in 2012) and NCSS collaborated together to spearhead the Enabling

Masterplan (EM) which was helmed by different representatives from public and private sector companies. The EM was intended to chart the development of programmes and services for the disabled community every 5 years. It aligned with the PM Lee’s vision of inclusive society where various recommendations were raised to improve the lives of the disabled people including students with special needs.

When the disabled child was ready for the next stage of education after pre-school, parents often made their final decisions on their school placements. Occasionally, recommendations from the doctors or specialists influenced the parents’ decision-making process. In Singapore, there were some selected mainstream schools that were considered as “disabled-friendly” schools. In reality, in the mainstream schools, there was often the case where proper provision of disability support for the disabled students remains inadequate. As a result, many disabled children lagged behind in class.

Even though the Education Ministry rolled out more “Allied Educators” to support disabled children, the Allied Educators could only help to support children with general learning difficulties, not those with special needs. That’s to say the Allied Educators could only give the disabled students remedial

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classes to review on what they had learnt in the classrooms. But the actual situation of meeting the needs of disabled students remained far from desirable outcomes,

Being concerned, some parents rather sent their disabled children to special schools as they felt that their disabled children might get better academic attention in the classrooms as compared to the mainstream schools. There were approximately 20 special schools in Singapore and they were wholly managed by voluntary organizations. At that time, Education Ministry did not recognise them equally as mainstream schools and all special teachers’ training courses and all these systems were largely managed by voluntary organizations, which were often understaffed and poorly trained. It resulted in lack of homogeneity of school curriculum among the special schools. The research further showed that lack of homogeneity across different special schools worsened the quality of education delivered to disabled students. Thus it affected their future education pathways to the higher schools of learning. Secondly, teaching at special schools was often perceived as poorly paid, lack of career prospects and onerous working hours. It created high staff turnover rates and shortage of therapists. Those teachers who taught at the special schools were often armed with lower educational qualifications and the quality of teaching disabled students was usually substandard.

There was a strongly feedback from the public that “Ministries should stop trying to pass the buck to each other due to their own limitations. Same energy should be better spent on objectively identifying the Ministry most suited for the role and focusing on finding viable and sustainable solutions for the families.” (Ministry of Social and Family Development, 2006).

5.3.2 Major changes to Education System after 2007 Several key initiatives were identified by Education Ministry and voluntary organisations. In recognition of the needs of greater inclusivity in the classrooms, more resources were mobilized to meet needs of the disabled schools. So far, Education Ministry had already earmarked 6 special schools with adequate resources. Principals and teachers from the mainstream schools were seconded to the special schools to allow them to gain first-hand experience in working with the students with special needs and special needs educators. It helped to improve the image of special schools and to bring in better quality of staff. Various initiatives are discussed.

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New curriculum framework

Prior to 2011, Education Ministry was not actively involved in planning the curriculum for special schools. However, Education Ministry, being in conjunction with disability organizations, began to take more ownership of disability education; it developed new curriculum framework which was known as “SPED Curriculum Framework – ‘Living, Learning and Working in 21st

Century’ to improve the quality of curriculum design and to set appropriate desired outcomes for disabled students to achieve upon their graduation (Ministry of Education, 2015b). This curriculum framework provided a set of guidelines for special education schools to improve their service delivery of quality and holistic education and to provide greater autonomy for them to tailor their curriculum to meet the individual needs of students with special needs. The curriculum framework included five key components: a) Character and Citizenship Education (CCE); b) Information

Communication Technology; c) Learning Domains; d) SPED outcomes; and e) Vision.

Figure 5-3: SPED curriculum framework

Source: Adapted from Ministry of Education (2015b)

Satellite partnership

This new programme was introduced in 2007 as part of the government’s efforts to push for creation of more existing inclusive schools. The government encouraged some mainstream schools which are physically close to the special schools to develop satellite partnership. Under the

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satellite partnership, both schools conduct joint learning and social activities through the compulsory school lessons e.g. curricular activities. Under these programmes, regular school students have the opportunities to interact with the students with special needs during the certain period of time.

Academic wise, students with special needs join the regular classrooms with their special needs educators and learn with them. To date, there are 16 special schools that partner with the mainstream schools and the Education Ministry intends to encourage more mainstream schools to enter the satellite partnership with the special schools.

Revamp of special needs trainings for pre- and in-service teachers

To better support students with special needs in mainstream schools, Education Ministry, being in collaboration with teacher training college, had already reformed the teacher training courses to instill deeper understandings of disabilities and to develop specialized knowledge and skills on how to handle students with diverse needs. Since 2005, Education Ministry made it compulsory for pre-service teachers to attend 12-hour class on awareness about special needs.

Some in-service teachers could apply for professional courses or higher-level courses e.g.

Advanced Diploma and Master of Special Educations. These courses include formal in-service training courses and on-going learning opportunities for specific type of disabilities. The Education

Ministry targeted to achieve 20% of secondary school teachers to receive specialized training in special education by 2012.

Introduction of Allied Educators scheme

The Education Ministry devised three new kinds of Allied Educators (AED) for all mainstream schools: AED (counselling), AED (learning and behavioural support) and AED (teaching and learning). There should be at least 1 AED (learning and behavioural support) in each primary school and 51 secondary schools. Education Ministry targeted to recruit more AEDs to meet increasing demands of disabled students. According to MOE, the key roles and responsibilities of

AED were to “work with teachers to nurture and develop every child in school by raising the quality of interaction with every child [including child with special educational needs]” (Ministry of

Education, 2013a).

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5.4 MOVING TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AFTER 2011

Singapore signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 30th

November 2012 and then ratified it on 18 July 2013. This Agreement came into effect on 18 August

2013. Many Singaporeans including the disabled lauded Singapore government’s decisive move to pledge her support to recognize the dignity of the disabled people and grant them equal rights to seek fair employment and treatment at their workplaces and medical healthcare. Under the UN pact,

Singapore was obliged to introduce various measures that promote human rights of the disabled people without discrimination i.e. enforcing anti-discrimination legislation and granting special provisions for the disabled people when implementing policies. In the past, the disabled community in Singapore was often ostracized; they were deprived of their basic rights to education, employment and health care. Even now, although the Compulsory Education Act was enforced in 2003 to make it mandatory for a child to attend school, this act did not extend to the group of the disabled students.

That would mean that the mainstream schools were not obliged to admit students with special needs.

Besides that, even for the special education schools, children with special needs were not either required to attend as it was not mandatory for children with special needs to attend any forms of schooling. The issues for truancy for students with special needs were not treated severely at the same level as it was handled for students without special needs in the mainstream schools. Apart from absence of legislation in enforcing the Compulsory Education Act for disabled children, there were other societal issues that had to be properly addressed i.e. lack of early intervention programmes for the disabled children at their early ages, lack of proper governance and homogeneity of special education structures that cut across different types of disabilities, lack of strong implementation of Inclusive Education for disabled students. The barriers to inclusive education also include large mainstream class size, lack of special needs facilities in the existing schools, high turn-over rate of special education teachers and inadequate teacher training for special needs educators and in-service teachers. These above-mentioned problems called for immediate and long-term solutions to ensure that no disabled child would fall through the crack of education system.

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5.4.1 Increased efforts to improve quality of education According to Ministry of Social and Family Development (2011), the Education Ministry has acknowledged these problems and decisively beefed up its effort to take its greater reins of whole management of special schools in terms of funding, design of curriculum and human resource management. Recruitment and appointment of teachers were also subsumed under the Education

Ministry to ensure that principals and teachers were constantly rotated between mainstream and special schools to improve the quality of special needs education. To accord families with disabled students at both mainstream and special school a greater voice, the formalized platform for parents and schools to share their concerns directly with Education Ministry was proposed. Previously, there was no formalized platform for concerned parents to air their feedback to the policymakers and without presence of any platform, it added layers of bureaucracy that made it onerous for concerns to be raised to the Education Ministry.

5.4.2 Third Enabling Masterplan Every five years, the government unveils the national disability blueprint to discuss the recommendations that are proposed to improve the lives of persons with disability in Singapore, be it employment, education, healthcare and social issues. As discussed earlier on, the most recent third

Enabling Masterplan was released in 2016 and unlike the previous Enabling Masterplan blueprints, it focused more on the seamless transition across the life stages of person with disabilities from education towards employment and support framework for the caregivers. According to the report, some recommendations were suggested and anticipated to be materialised for the next 5 years starting from 2017. One of them was the establishment of a dedicated government office that was responsible to oversee all disability-related across all ministries and to monitor the implementation of CRPD action items. In view of education, this blueprint did not outline any new initiative to strengthen the inclusive education but it rather focuses on improving the current inclusive opportunities for greater interaction between students from mainstream schools and special education schools. It also looked into more meaningful inclusive programmes at the pre-school levels which were not properly addressed in the past and development of more specialised services

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to target the students with moderate to severe disabilities. (Ministry of Social and Family

Development, 2016).

5.4.2 Enactment of compulsory education for students with special needs In the past, students with moderate or severe disabilities were exempted from compulsory education while students with mild disabilities were required to attend schools under the

Compulsory Education Act. However, after the passage of revised Education Act, starting from 2019, children with moderate and severe disabilities from Primary One onwards will have to attend government-funded special education schools. This unprecedented move received lauds and praise from many education scholars and parents as it sent the strong signal that every child regardless of disability is equally important and every child’s right to education is fully esteemed under the revised Compulsory Education Act.

5.5 GENERAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS INCLUSION OF STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

While it is widely acknowledged that the government spares no effort to step up the efforts to ensure that every individual, whether disabled or not, should have his/her equal opportunity to education, the extent to which inclusive education could effectively meet the needs of students in the classroom remains to be areas of concern for parents and teachers alike.

5.5.1 Poll findings on general attitudes towards students with special needs Recent poll conducted by a philanthropic organisation, Lien Foundation, revealed the dismal results that only half of parents responded that they were comfortable to have their child sitting with the child with special needs. Besides that only 10 per cent of Singaporeans expressed their confidence in interacting with children with special needs. On top of all, disappointingly 30 per cent of Singapore agreed that Singapore was an inclusive society. This disheartening poll results spoke the volume of the actual reality behind the general Singaporeans’ attitudes towards inclusive education. One of the respondents shared that Singaporeans were rather more tolerant of persons with special needs than accepting them and in the context of inclusion, there was a gap between what

Singaporeans thought and what they did (Tai, 2016a). Ultimately, it boiled down to the main reason

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that there was lack of interaction opportunities between the public and children with special needs and thus it led to limited degree of openness and understanding towards them (Tai, 2016b).

5.5.2 General teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education Based on the previous studies conducted on the teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education, on the whole, the recent research conducted by Thaver and Lim (2014) revealed that the mainstream teachers in Singapore generally held their negative attitudes towards people with special needs and were rather indifferent on the issues on inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms. Although they were supportive of the concept of inclusive education, they still preferred that the students with special needs could be best placed in the special schools where they could receive better support for their learning needs. This kind of belief is parallel with the poll finding that has been discussed previously and it supports the claim that their negative attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom could be due to the “history of limited participation of people with disabilities in the life of mainstream community and segregated education and a belief within the mainstream education community that students with disabilities are best educated in special schools” (Thaver & Lim, 2014; pg. 1047). Another research showed that the mainstream teachers’ attitudes towards the students with special needs had not changed much since the 1970s and 1980s and they cited the emphasis on academic results and competitive school culture as the key reasons behind their attitudes towards them (Eng et al., 1982).

Based on the interview findings with mainstream teachers in Singapore (Yeo et al., 2014), the key salient points about the inclusion highlighted the importance of school-wide collaboration with stakeholders. Teachers commented that they would be willing to support inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom if they had their good exposure to good teaching strategies.

Lastly, the teachers feedbacked that teacher training itself was not sufficient enough to make them feel competent in teaching them but their successful classroom experiences could truly help them to increase their sense of teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education.

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SUMMARY

A singular and clearly articulated vision spelt out by Prime Minister of Singapore resulted in plethora of recommendations to improve the provision of support for the students with special needs in the mainstream schools. It includes implementation of early intervention programmes that are carried out at much earlier ages so as to make early referral to necessary medical assessment and suitable educational placement. Apart from early intervention programmes in place, the Ministry of

Education rolled out teaching support system to provide individualised support to the students with special needs. Major changes were made to the curriculum and the mandatory module on special needs students was introduced to the teaching training college. The most visible change is that the government began to take greater ownership of special needs education, which was previously run by non-profit organizations and the most praiseworthy of all is that the government has indeed heeded the public call for the compulsory education for all students including those with special needs.

A clearly defined goal to make Singapore an inclusive society has its positive spin-off effect on education for students with special needs. However, not all students with special needs are clearly benefitted from inclusive education as there is still lack of positive public attitude towards inclusive education. Besides that, unlike Japan and other countries including even the closest neighbouring country, Malaysia, there is no disability law that regulates the discriminatory acts carried out by the recalcitrant against persons with disability. The most ‘amusing’ thing is that Singapore is well-known for its “fine city” where it dispenses plethora of fines, including the famous caning punishment for any trivial criminal acts (not to forget about the chewing gum ban). Yet it does not punish anyone who is guilty of committing any discriminatory act against the disabled minority. It is noted that Singapore criminalises any form of discrimination against anyone based on only four categories: religions, race, descent and place of birth but it does not mention anything about disability.

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CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY

6.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims to present the analysis and the results of quantitative findings obtained from the teacher questionnaire that consists of major sections: demographic section, TEIP and

SACIE-R. It investigates the level of in-service teachers’ perceived teaching efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs and what the background variables (i.e. child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables) significantly influence teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy. It also explores whether there is any significant correlation between teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes, and identifies what type of teaching-efficacy that best predicts teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education in Japan and Singapore.

Since this study provides two country case-studies analysis in Japan and Singapore, this chapter is intentionally broken down into 2 main sections: Japan case study and Singapore case study. Within each case study, it is further divided into three parts of this section. The first part is to discuss the general findings and analysis of the each country respondents’ demographic data, the second part discusses the preliminary analysis before the third part dedicates to the findings on teachers’ perceived teaching efficacy (TEIP), teachers’ attitudes (SACIE-R) and the relationship between teaching-efficacy and attitudes.

6.2 JAPAN CASE STUDY

All participants were selected from two main regions: Kantō (関東) and Kyūshū (九州) regions through cluster random sampling methods and they were invited to participate in the study on the basis of their voluntary participation. A three-part Japanese questionnaire was administered to all participants and the completed questionnaires were collected at their educational institutions within three weeks.

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6.2.1 Demographic data Out of 189 Japanese in-service teachers, 82 (43.4%) primary school teachers and 107

(56.6%) secondary school teachers participated in the survey forms. All of them indicated their genders which 94 (51.9%) of the respondents were male while 87 (48.1%) female respondents participated in this survey. However, given the small number of teachers participating in this study, it is important to pay a caution that the sample selected may not be the true representative of the Japan population and the selected research sites are not found in every prefecture in Japan.

In terms of geographical locations, 102 (54.0%) were urban teachers and 87 (46.0%) worked in rural areas. Schools were located in several prefectures in Japan. 77 Japanese urban participants were working in Tokyo and other 25 urban teachers taught at Tsukuba city in Ibaraki prefecture. All

Japanese rural teachers taught schools in rural regions in Yamaga, Kumamoto prefecture.

Nearly half (43%) of the respondents aged between 46 years and above while the rest of them were scattered across other four age groups: 7% from 25 years and below; 24.7% from 26-35 years old group and 25.3% from 36-45 years old group. Likewise for the years of teaching experience, the majority of them have taught more than 21 years (45.5%) while the rest was distributed evenly across 4 groups of teaching experiences; 1-5 years (14.4%), 6-10 years (13.9%), 11-15 years (13.4%) and 16-20 years (10.2%). However, only 2.7% of them have just joined the school within a year of teaching.

Most of the respondents’ education qualifications were relatively high; the majority of them obtained their Bachelor degrees (81.3%). 10.7% of them obtained Masters’ degrees. Very small percentage of them graduated from high schools and junior colleges (1.6% and 6.4% respectively).

More than half of the respondents were regular teachers (63.8%) while the rest of them were teacher-aides (19.5%), school leaders - school principals and vice principals- (10.3%) and chief teachers (6.5%).

Almost all of the respondents (97.3%) reported that they had their significant interactions with persons with disabilities (which could be friends, neighbours, colleagues or schoolmates) while few (2.7%) reported no interaction with persons with disabilities. More than half of them (64%) did

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY not have any family members with disabilities. Most of them had their considerable interactions with persons with disabilities and 85.5% of them had taught their students with special needs before. Only

14.5% of them had never taught students with special needs before at their schools.

When asked to share about their teaching trainings in special needs education, nearly all of them (94.2%) took their trainings in special needs education. Out of those who took their special needs education training, most of teachers (92.8%) attended their special needs education trainings at their schools as compared to 78.9% of respondents took their trainings at municipal/prefectural level.

Concerning about their knowledge about law or policies on special/inclusive education, many of them (46.2%) had their average knowledge about the presence of law and school policies compared to other groups who had good (12.4%), little (39.8%) or no (1.6%) knowledge about law and policies. Again, the demographic study revealed that most of them felt that they had average level of confidence (51.9%) to teach students with special needs as compared to other groups who felt that they had no (9.7%), little (31.9%) or high (6.5%) confidence level to teach them.

Finally, the respondents were asked to respond to whether they had any prior or current teaching experience with specific disability groups. Most of them had taught students with ADHD

(80.7%), learning disability (70.1%), intellectual disability (69%) and autism (65.8%) in the decreasing order. Only 11.2% of teachers taught students with visual impairment accounts for the smallest number. A summary of respondents’ demographic background information is tabulated in the Table 6-1.

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Table 6-1: Demographic profiles of Japanese in-service teachers Variable Groups Frequency Percent Primary School 82 43.4 Grade level Secondary School 107 56.6 Geographical Rural 87 46.0 locations Urban 102 54.0 Male 94 51.9 Gender Female 87 48.1 25 years old and younger 13 7.0 26 – 35 years old 46 24.7 Age 36 – 45 years old 47 25.3 46 years old and older 80 43.0 High school 3 1.6 Junior college 12 6.4 Highest qualification Bachelor’s degree 152 81.3 Master’s degree 20 10.7 School leader (Principal, Vice Principal) 19 10.3 Chief teacher 12 6.5 Current teaching post Regular teacher 118 63.8 Teacher-aide 36 19.5 1 – 5 years 29 17.1 6 – 10 years 26 13.9 Years of teaching 11 – 15 years 25 13.4 experience 16 – 20 years 19 10.2 21 years and more 85 45.5 Yes 181 97.3 Interaction with PWDs No 5 2.7 Taught disabled Yes 159 85.5 students No 27 14.5 Family members with Yes 63 36.0 disabilities No 112 64.0 Took special needs Yes 178 94.2 education training No 11 5.8 Took trainings at Yes 167 92.8 school level No 13 7.2

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Took trainings at Yes 146 78.9 municipal/prefectural No 39 21.1 None 3 1.6 Knowledge about Little 74 39.8 disability laws and Average 86 46.2 policies Good 23 12.4 None 18 9.7 Confidence level to Little 59 31.9 teach disabled students Average 96 51.9 Good 12 6.5 Taught students with Yes 151 80.7 ADHD No 36 19.3 Taught students with Yes 131 70.1 learning disability No 56 29.9 Taught students with Yes 129 69.0 intellectual disability No 58 31.0 Taught students with Yes 123 65.8 autism No 64 34.2 Taught students with Yes 69 36.9 hearing impairment No 118 63.1 Taught students with Yes 68 36.6 multiple disabilities No 118 63.4 Taught students with Yes 63 33.7 physical difficulties No 124 66.3 Taught students with Yes 54 29.0 emotional disabilities No 132 71.0 Taught students with Yes 41 21.9 language and speech No 146 78.1 delay Taught students with Yes 21 11.2 visual impairment No 166 88.8 Source: Created by author

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6.2.2 Preliminary Analysis The first step in carrying out the data analysis is to examine and confirm the reliability of the data. First of all, I need to check for these following issues: 1) internal consistency reliability of

TEIP and SACIE-R scale; 2) tests for normality of data; and 3) any outliers of data.

Before conducting these preliminary tests, short description of Japanese respondents to TEIP and SACIE-R scales are discussed to give the readers an idea of how they responded to each question differently. Figures 6-1 and 6-2 depicting the outcomes of these TEIP and SACIE-R scales are provided below. For most statements in TEIP questionnaires, the majority of Japanese teachers agreed with these statements except for two statements “I am confident in informing others who know little about laws and policies related to the inclusion of students with disabilities” and “I am confident in designing learning tasks so that the individual needs of students with disabilities are accommodated”.

Unlike the TEIP questionnaires, SACIE-R questionnaires consist of mixture of negative and positive statements. There are 10 negative statements out of total 15 items. Looking at the results,

Japanese teachers agreed that it was difficult for them to provide appropriate attentions for disabled students and were particularly concerned about their limited knowledge and skills to teach them.

They also admitted that they were concerned about their increased workload if they had any disabled students in their classrooms and if they had any disability, they would feel terrible. Also, they felt that students who required communicative technologies should not be in the regular classrooms.

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Figure 6-1: Stacked bar chart on Japanese teachers’ responses to TEIP questionnaires

Source: Created by author

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Figure 6-2: Stacked bar chart on Japanese teachers’ responses to SACIE-R questionnaires

Source: Created by author

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Internal consistency reliability test measures the reliability of the questionnaire items by checking the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. According to DeVellis (1991: pg. 85), the minimally acceptable alpha coefficient for the reliability of questionnaire data should be at least .65 and in this case, it is calculated in the SPSS that provides the average values of all items. Results shows that Cronbach’s alpha for overall TEIP scale is r = 0.915 which shows that this instrument remains very reliable. Cronbach’s alpha for three different subscales of the TEIP are, r = 0.839 for efficacy in managing behaviours, r = 0.771 for efficacy in collaboration and r = 0.82 for efficacy in using inclusive instructions. All these Cronbach’s alpha for overall TEIP scale as well for three subscales remain in the acceptable range (at least 0.65) according to DeVellis (1991).

Table 6-2: Cronbach’s alpha results for TEIP scale Overall TEIP Efficacy in managing Efficacy in Efficacy in using behavior collaboration inclusive instructions 0.915 0.839 0.771 0.82

Cronbach’s alpha for overall SACIE-R scale for the present Japan case study sample shows r

= 0.715 and for the subscales: sentiments, attitudes and concerns are: r = 0.57, r = 0.792 and r =

0.681 respectively. All of the alpha values except for sentiment subscale fall in the acceptable range

(at least 0.65). Compared to TEIP, the reliability coefficient for SACIE-R was lower and since the sentiment sub-scale has a very low reliability score, it was formerly considered to be eliminated as what Tasnuba and Tsokova (2015) suggested. After much consideration and discussion with the professors, I decided to review certain items under Sentiment subscale and considered to remove some of the items that could affect the Cronbach’s alpha results. As a final step to carefully select and remove certain items from the Sentiment subscale of SACIE-R questionnaires, the Cronbach’s alpha for overall SACIE-R had turned out to be 0.707 which slightly dropped from the previous alpha value of 0.715 (-1.1% drop) but remained above 0.70 as recommended by DeVillis (2003).

However the Cronbach’s alpha for Sentiment subscale improved drastically from 0.57 to 0.708

(+24.2% improvement) after removal of three items (Item 2: I dread the thought that I could eventually end up with a disability; Item 5: I tend to make contacts with people with disabilities

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY brief and I finish them as quickly as possible; and Item 9: I would feel terrible if I had a disability).

Table 6-3: Revised Cronbach’s alpha results for SACIE-R scale. Overall SACIE-R Sentiments Attitudes Concerns 0.707 0.708 0.792 0.681

Next, the assumption of normality is crucial especially when the researchers are planning to use regression or any parametric tests (t-test, ANOVA and others). Field (2009) and Pallant (2005) recommended the normality tests before embarking on the actual quantitative tests. In order to test the normality o¥f the distribution of scores for both TEIP and SACIE-R scales, the values of skewness and kurtosis are required. Skewness value refers to how symmetrical the distribution is while kurtosis value provides information on the ‘peakness’ of the distribution (Field, 2009; Pallant,

2005). If the distribution is assumed to be perfectly normal, the value of skewness and kurtosis should be zero which is, however, not realistic in social science research. Positive skewness values would result in the distribution shifting to the left while the negative values cause the distribution to shift to the right. Positive kurtosis value will result in ‘pointed’ at the centre with long tails and negative value has its ‘plateaued’ peak. Tabachnick and Fidell (2001; pg. 75) cautioned that while it was universally true that with the larger sample size (200+) the skewness and kurtosis values might be close to 0, there were some exceptional cases that it might not hold true. Therefore, Tabachnick and Fidell (2001: pg. 73) recommended the alternative way to check the shape of the distribution (i.e. histogram).

Table 6-4: Descriptive Statistics for skewness and kurtosis

Skewness Kurtosis N Statistic Std. Error z-score Statistic Std. Error z-score TEIP 187 -.176 .178 -0.989 -.184 .354 -0.520 SACIE-R 187 .350 .178 1.96 .862 .354 2.44

Table 6-4 shows the table of descriptive statistics for two variables. Both skewness (-.176) and kurtosis (-.184) values for TEIP are quite close to zero and negative (which is good). However for SACIE-R, the skewness value (.350) seems to be slightly more positive which means the

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY distribution of SACIE-R is lightly skewed to the left. The kurtosis value of SACIE-R indicates the positive value of 0.862 that indicates pointed distribution. However, we need to convert these values into z-scores to see whether these values are likely to follow normal distribution. In order to check the normality, the z-value should be within the range of 1.96. If z-score is found to be bigger than

1.96, it results in deviation from the normal distribution. However according to Field (2009), if the sample size is bigger than 200, it is more likely to have smaller deviation from normality; in other words, if the sample size is smaller than 200, he reported, “it’s OK to look for values above 1.96”

(pg. 139). Therefore in this case, although the z-score value of kurtosis for the SACI-R seems to be greater than 1.96, further test is needed to confirm whether it obeys the normal distribution.

To further verify the normality of the distribution, Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) and

Shapiro-Wilk tests could confirm whether if p-value is greater than .05, it shows that the distribution of the sample is not significantly different from the normal distribution. In other words, if p-value is greater than .05, it is likely to be normal (Field, 2009: pg. 144). Visual tests i.e.

Histogram test and Normal Q-Q plot can be used to visually inspect whether the variables obey the normal distribution. In Normal Q-Q plot, if most of the points fall on the ideal straight line, then this line obeys a normal distribution.

Table 6-5: Tests of Normality for TEIP and SACIE-R

Kolmogorov-Smirnova Shapiro-Wilk Statistic Df Sig. Statistic Df Sig. TEIP .059 187 .200 .992 187 .393 SACIE-R .077 187 .09 .983 187 .26 a. Lilliefors Significance Correction

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Figure 6-3: Histogram of TEIP and SACIE-R values

Figure 6-4: Normal Q-Q plot of TEIP and SACIE-R

As shown in the Table 6-5 and Figures 6-3 and 6-4, a Kolmogorov-Smirnova (p > .05) and

Shapiro-Wilk (p > .05) tests (Razali & Wah, 2011; Shapiro & Wilk, 1965) and a visual inspection of histograms and normal Q-Q plots confirmed that the TEIP and SACIE-R values were approximately and reasonably normal distributed with a skewness of -0.176 (SE = .178) and .350 (SE = .178) and a kurtosis of -0.184 (SE = 0.354) and 0.862 (SE = 0.354) for TEIP and SACIE-R scales (Crammer,

1998; Crammer & Howitt, 2004; Doane & Seward, 2011). These results conclude that TEIP and

SACIE-R have obeyed the normal distribution.

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Lastly, it is imperative to check for any outlier that results in certain value that could deviate substantially from the rest of data and we have to be aware of any existing outlier values. A Boxplot test can be used to identify any outlier from each data type. If any score that SPSS flags out is outlier that is represented as little circle with number (ID number). For those outliers that are flagged out as asterisks *, they are considered as extreme points which are more than 3 box-lengths from the edge of the box. According to Pallant (2005), it is necessary to decide what to do with the outliers. First of all, the score must be determined as genuine, not just a random error and it is necessary to re-check the questionnaires or data record to see whether there could be a typo error or abnormality being entered in the system. If the error is found to be genuine, Tabachnick & Fidell (2011) suggest removing all extreme outliers from the data file or to change the extreme outliers to lesser extreme value.

Figure 6-5: Boxplot of TEIP and SACIE-R scores

Based on the Figure 6-5, there are few outliers (not extreme outliers) which are represented by circles with ID numbers. Upon checking the questionnaire items, the scores are found to be genuine and there is no particular abnormality about these data. As per Tabachnick & Fidell (2011)’s suggestions, only extreme outliers are recommended to be removed and in this case, I decided not to do anything with these outliers.

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6.2.3 Analysis of Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes This section intends to discuss the findings and presents the analysis of Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs. Quantitative research is carried out to answer three key research questions: what are the key variables that affect their teaching-efficacy and attitudes and how the teacher’s teaching-efficacy affects their attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs.

Research Question #1 - Teaching-efficacy:

For this particular question on teaching-efficacy, there are two key questions: What is the level of their teaching-efficacy and what kind of variables that affect their teaching-efficacy?

Question #1.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ perceived teaching efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs in Japan?

Overall mean scores and standard deviations on the overall TEIP scale including the three types of teaching-efficacy subscales have been tabulated in the Table 6-6. The overall mean value can be obtained by adding up all the response values and then dividing by numbers of respondents.

Same thing go for the subscales types – efficacy in managing discruptive behaviour, collaboration and using inclusive instructions.

Table 6-6: Means and standard deviations of Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy No of items Mean Value SD Efficacy in managing disruptive behaviour 6 3.98 0.65 Efficacy in collaboration 6 3.87 0.57 Efficacy in using inclusive instruction 6 3.99 0.62 Overall teaching-efficacy 18 3.95 0.54

This TEIP scale uses all positive statements. The higher the scores will be, the higher sense of teaching-efficacy the Japanese teachers possess towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools. The mean scores of all subscales are found to be quite close to one another. The overall mean score of Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy is 3.95 (SD = 0.54). The

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY maximum score 6 refers to the respondents who strongly agree with the statements while the minimum score 1 indicates that the respondents strongly disagree with the statements. For the interpretation of the mean values, the cut-off mean value is determined to be 3 (mid-point value), which indicates that teachers tend to adopt neutral sense of teaching-efficacy towards students with special needs. The result shows that the mean value of teaching-efficacy indicates slightly above 3 and it demonstrates that Japanese teachers possess slightly above-average teaching-efficacy.

However, compared to previous studies, Japanese teachers seem to possess weaker teaching-efficacy towards students with special needs than Bangladeshi teachers with an overall mean score of 5.32

(Tasnuba and Tsokova, 2015), Finnish teachers with an overall score of 4.53 and South African teachers with an overall score of 4.63 (Savolainen et al., 2012). Again, the results show that

Japanese teachers have the highest efficacy in using inclusive instruction, followed by efficacy in managing disruptive behaviour and efficacy in collaboration.

Question #1.2: What are the child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables that affect their teaching-efficacy in Japan?

Descriptive and parametric analysis tests were carried out to investigate whether there was any significant difference in the overall means score of teaching-efficacy based on three variables: child-related, teacher-related and school-related variables. Independent t-test and ANOVA tests were carried out. As discussed in the Methodology Chapter, the independent t-test only tests the two unrelated groups. ANOVA test takes the form of two types in this case: one-way ANOVA and two-way ANOVA which are conducted for more than two unrelated groups/categories.

Results show that teachers in level of knowledge about disability-related laws and policies and relevant experiences in teaching students with special needs may significantly affect their overall teaching-efficacy scores.

A) Experience in teaching students with special needs

An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy based on whether they have any relevant teaching experience with students with

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY special needs. The independent variables are: 1) Experience in teaching students with special needs;

2) No experience in teaching students with special needs. See Table 6-7 for the means and standard deviations for different variables. An independent sample t-test indicates that TEIP score (overall teaching-efficacy) are significant higher for teachers who taught students with special needs before

(M = 3.98, SD = 0.56) than for those who never taught students with special needs (M = 3.77, SD =

0.46), t(182) = 2.15, p = .04 < .05 (two-tailed), d = 0.42 which indicates moderate effect size.

Table 6-7: Means and Standard Deviations: Experience in teaching students with special needs Experiences in teaching students with special needs 95% CI for Yes No Mean t df M SD N M SD N Difference TEIP 3.98 .56 157 3.77 0.46 27 .01, .41 2.15* 182 *p < .05.

B) Knowledge about legislation or policies pertaining to inclusive education One-way ANOVA test is conducted to compare the Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy based on their level of knowledge about disability-related legislation and policies. The independent variable represented their knowledge about the disability legislation/policies which are represented by 4 groups: 1) None; 2) Little; 3) Average; and 4) Good. The dependent variable is average score of

Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs.

Table 6-8: Descriptive Statistics of overall TEIP score by level of knowledge

Level of 95% Confidence Interval for Mean knowledge about legislation and policies N Mean SD Std. Error Lower Bound Upper Bound None 3 3.7037 .37816 .21833 2.7643 4.6431 Little 74 3.7698 .52846 .06143 3.6474 3.8922 Average 84 3.9979 .50603 .05521 3.8880 4.1077 Good 23 4.3454 .51926 .10827 4.1209 4.5700 Total 184 3.9448 .54435 .04013 3.8656 4.0240

There is a significant difference at the p < .05 level among these groups as determined by

2 2 one-way ANOVA; F(3, 180) = 7.96, p = .00, p = .012. The effect size based on eta-squared, p

= .012, indicates the modest effect size. Post-hoc comparative analyses using Tukey’s HSD test at

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY the p < .05 level further indicates that those teachers with good knowledge about legislation and policies (M = 4.35, SD = .52) had more statistically positive teaching-efficacy than teachers possessing average knowledge (M = 3.99, SD = .51) and little knowledge (M = 3.77, SD = .53).

Table 6-9: One-Way ANOVA of TEIP score by Level of knowledge

Source Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 6.369 3 2.123 7.985 .000* Within Groups 47.858 180 .266 Total 54.227 183

*p < .05.

Table 6-10: Post-hoc Analysis of TEIP score by Level of knowledge

95% Confidence Interval (I) Level of knowledge (J) Level of knowledge Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound None Little .996 -.8536 .7214 Average .766 -1.0798 .4915 Good .182 -1.4625 .1791 Little None .996 -.7214 .8536 Average .031* -.4413 -.0149 Good .000* -.8948 -.2564 Average None .766 -.4915 1.0798 Little .031* .0149 .4413 Good .024* -.6622 -.0329 Good None .182 -.1791 1.4625 Little .000* .2564 .8948 Average .024* .0329 .6622 *. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

C) Selected non-significant outcomes – Primary vs Secondary schools Despite the numerous findings found that different educational level could affect teachers’ teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs, in the case of Japan, it was found that there was no significance difference in their teaching-efficacy between primary and secondary school teachers. An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the primary and secondary

Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy. See Table 6-11 for the means and standard deviations for

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY different variables. Based on the t-test result, the p-value is found to be .85 which is greater than 5% and therefore, it rejects the hypothesis that primary and secondary teachers have different teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in their classrooms.

Table 6-11: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational level Educational Level 95% CI for Primary School Secondary School Mean t df M SD N M SD N Difference TEIP 3.94 .48 82 3.95 .59 105 -.17, .14 .194 185 *p < .05.

With the further investigation to confirm whether there is no significant difference between primary and secondary school teachers, 2-way ANOVA test is carried out to compare the mean differences between groups that are split onto two independent variables against dependent variables.

In this case, there are two independent variables: educational levels (Primary versus Secondary) and experience in teaching students with special needs (Yes versus No). Based on the Table 6-12, the

2-way ANOVA finding showed that all effects (educational levels and experience in teaching students with special needs) were not statistically significant at the .05 significance level.

Table 6-12: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational level and Experience in teaching Educational Level Primary Secondary TEIP Experience in No experience in Experience in No experience in teaching SEN teaching SEN teaching SEN teaching SEN students students students students Mean value 3.959 3.86 3.86 3.67 F .408 4.007 Sig. .524 .057 Partial Eta .002 .022

Squared *p < .05.

D) Selected non-significant outcomes – Urban versus Rural The finding found that there was no significance difference in their teaching-efficacy between urban and rural school teachers. An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the rural and urban Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy. See Table 6-13 for the means and standard deviations for different locations. Based on the t-test result, the p-value is found to be .81 which is

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY greater than 5% and therefore, it rejects the hypothesis that rural and urban Japanese teachers have different teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in their classrooms.

Table 6-13: Means and Standard Deviations: Geographical locations Geographical locations 95% CI for Urban Rural Mean T df M SD N M SD N Difference TEIP 3.94 .52 101 3.96 .57 86 -.18, .14 .241 185 *p < .05.

With the further investigation to confirm whether there is no significant difference between urban and rural Japanese school teachers, 2-way ANOVA test is carried out to compare the mean differences between groups that are split onto two independent variables against dependent variables.

In this case, there are two independent variables: geographical locations (Rural versus Urban) and experience in teaching students with special needs (Yes versus No). Based on the Table 6-14, the

2-way ANOVA finding showed that all effects (geographical locations and experience in teaching students with special needs) were not statistically significant at the .05 significance level as all the p-values were found to be greater than 5%. .

Table 6-14: Means and Standard Deviation: Geographical location and Experience in teaching Geographical locations in Japan Rural Urban TEIP Experience in No experience in Experience in No experience teaching SEN teaching SEN teaching SEN in teaching SEN students students students students Mean value 3.972 3.815 3.987 3.754 F 3.019 .461 Sig. .084 .598 Partial Eta .016 .003

Squared *p < .05.

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Research Question #2 - Attitudes:

This question asks two key questions: What is the level of their attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs and what kind of variables that affect their attitudes?

Question #2.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in Japan?

Mean scores and standard deviations of the overall SACIE-R scale including the three subscales have been recorded in the Table 6-15. As mentioned earlier, the mean scores can be obtained by summing up the response values and then divinding by the number of respondents.

Same things go for the mean value of three subscales.

Table 6-15: Means and standard deviations of Japanese teachers’ attitudes No of items Mean Value SD Sentiments subscale 2 3.28 0.51 Attitudes subscale 5 2.59 0.47 Concerns subscale 5 2.58 0.45 Overall attitudes 12 2.70 0.32

This SACIE-R scale has three different subscales and two subscales use negative statements.

Before performing the actual analysis, there is a need to recode all the negative statements so that the higher score these revised scales result in more overall positive attitudes of teachers about including students with special needs in the regular classrooms. For the interpretation of mean values, the cut-off mean value was determined to be 2, which indicates that teachers are ambivalent in their attitudes towards students with special needs. The result shows that the overall mean value of attitudes is above 2 and it indicates that Japanese teachers are quite positive in their attitudes towards students with special needs. The overall mean score of Japanese teachers’ attitudes is 2.70 (SD =

0.32). Furthermore, Japanese teachers are positive on all statements and the most positive attitudes they have are on sentiments towards interacting with persons with disabilities (M = 3.28, SD = 0.51).

Their attitudes (M = 2.59, SD = 0.47) towards including students with students with special needs in

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY the regular classrooms and their concerns (M = 2.58, SD = 0.45) about what would happen if their students with special needs are included in their classrooms surpass the cut-off mean value.

Question #2.2: What are the child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables that affect their attitudes?

Likewise in the previous question, descriptive and parametric analyses were also carried out to find out whether there was any significant difference in the overall mean score of teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms based on child-related, teacher-related and school-related variables.

Results showed that those teachers with/without disabled family members and different levels of confidence to teach students with special needs would result in their significant difference in the overall attitudes towards inclusion.

A) Having family members with disabilities An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the Japanese teachers’ attitudes based on whether their family members have some forms of disabilities. The independent variables are: 1) Have family members with disabilities; 2) Do not have any family members with disabilities.

An independent sample t-test indicates that SACIE-R score (overall attitudes) are significant higher for teachers who have their disabled family members (M = 2.80, SD = 0.34) than for those who do not have any disabled family members (M = 2.66, SD = 0.30), t(171) = 2.87, p

= .005 < .05 (two-tailed), d = 0.447 which indicates moderate effect size.

Table 6-16: Means and Standard Deviations: Having any family members with disabilities Having family members with disabilities 95% CI for Yes No Mean t Df M SD N M SD N Difference SACIE-R 2.80 .34 63 2.66 .30 112 .04, .24 2.87* 171 *p < .05.

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B) Geographical locations in Japan An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the Japanese teachers’ attitudes based on geographical locations in Japan. The independent variables are: 1) Rural; 2) Urban. An independent sample t-test indicates that SACIE-R score (overall attitudes) are significant higher for rural teachers (M = 2.78, SD = 0.32) than urban teachers (M = 2.64, SD = 0.30), t(185) = 3.13, p

= .002 < .05 (two-tailed), d = 0.458 which indicates moderate effect size.

Table 6-17: Means and Standard Deviations: Geographical locations in Japan Geographical locations in Japan 95% CI for Rural Urban Mean t Df M SD N M SD N Difference SACIE-R 2.78 .32 86 2.64 .30 101 -.23, -.052 3.13* 185 *p < .05.

With the further investigation to find out while keeping geographical location as an independent variable, is there any independent variable that could affect Japanese teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education, the 2-way ANOVA test is carried out. In this case, there are two independent variables: geographical locations (Rural versus Urban) and Gender (Male versus

Female). Based on the Table 6-18, the 2-way ANOVA finding showed male female teachers (M =

2.687, SD = .29) had statistically more positive attitudes towards the inclusive education than male urban teachers (M = 2.56, SD = .30). However there was no conclusive evidence to show the significant difference between rural male and female teachers as p-value remained above 5%.

Table 6-18: Means and Standard Deviations: Gender and geographical locations Geographical Location SACIE-R Rural Urban Male Female Male Female Mean value 2.829 2.724 2.557 2.687 F 2.377 4.256 Sig. .125 .041* Partial Eta Squared .013 .024 *p < .05.

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C) Level of confidence to teach students with special needs

One-way ANOVA test is conducted to explore the impact of level of confidence to teach students with special needs on the Japanese teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs. Participants are divided into 4 groups according to the level of confidence to teach students: 1) None; 2) Little; 3) Average; and 4) Good. The dependent variable was average score of

Japanese teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs.

Table 6-19: Descriptive Statistics of overall SACIE-R score by level of confidence

95% Confidence Interval for Mean (I) Level of Std. confidence N Mean SD Error Lower Bound Upper Bound None 18 2.5316 .24169 18 2.4114 2.6518 Little 59 2.6729 .26617 59 2.6035 2.7422 Average 94 2.7401 .30582 94 2.6775 2.8027 High 12 2.8181 .57737 12 2.4512 3.1849 Total 183 2.7030 .31742 183 2.6567 2.7493

There is a significant difference at the p < .05 level among groups as determined by one-way

2 2 ANOVA F(3, 179) = 2.98, p = .03, p = .047. The effect size based on eta-squared, p = .012, indicates the moderate effect size. Post-hoc comparative analyses using Tukey’s HSD test at the p

< .05 level indicates that those teachers with average confidence (M = 2.74, SD = .31) showed more statistically positive attitude than teachers who had no confidence (M = 2.53, SD = .24). There were no statistically differences among the rest of groups.

Table 6-20: One-Way ANOVA of overall SACIE-R score by Level of confidence

Source Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups .871 3 .290 2.975 .033* Within Groups 17.467 179 .098 Total 18.338 182

*p < .05.

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Table 6-21: Post-hoc Analysis of overall SACIE-R score by Level of confidence

95% Confidence Interval (I) Level of confidence (J) Level of confidence Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound None Low .337 -.3594 .0768 Average .050* -.4170 -.0001 High .070 -.5884 .0154 Low None .337 -.0768 .3594 Average .567 -.2018 .0673 High .459 -.4017 .1113 Average None .050* .0001 .4170 Low .567 -.0673 .2018 High .848 -.3263 .1704 High None .070 -.0154 .5884 Low .459 -.1113 .4017 Average .848 -.1704 .3263 *. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

E) Selected non-significant outcomes – Primary vs Secondary schools Despite the numerous findings found that different educational level could affect teachers’

attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs, in the case of Japan, it was found that

there was no significance difference in their attitudes between primary and secondary school

teachers. An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the primary and secondary Japanese

teachers’ attitudes. See Table 6-22 for the means and standard deviations for different variables.

Based on the t-test result, the p-value is found to be .98 which is greater than 5% and therefore, it

rejects the hypothesis that primary and secondary teachers have different attitudes towards the

inclusion of students with special needs in their classrooms.

Table 6-22: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational level Educational Level 95% CI for Primary School Secondary School Mean t df M SD N M SD N Difference SACIE-R 2.702 .30 82 2.703 .33 105 -.09, .09 .031 185 *p < .05.

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In this case, there are two independent variables: educational levels (Primary versus Secondary) and disabled family members (Yes versus No). Based on the Table 6-23, the 2-way ANOVA finding showed that all effects (educational levels and experience in teaching students with special needs) were not statistically significant at the .05 significance level.

Table 6-23: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational level and disabled family members Educational Level Primary Secondary SACIE-R Experience in No experience Experience in No experience teaching SEN in teaching SEN teaching SEN in teaching SEN students students students students Mean value 2.71 2.70 2.72 2.60 F .017 1.682 Sig. .897 .196 Partial Eta .000 .009

Squared *p < .05.

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Research Question #3 - Relationships between teaching-efficacy and attitudes

This question asks how the teachers’ teaching-efficacy influences their attitudes towards the inclusion of their children with special needs and what kinds of teaching-efficacy would predict their attitudes towards them.

Question #3.1: How does their teaching-efficacy correlate with their attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in Japan?

This research question requires an examination of Pearson’s correlation coefficient in order to determine whether there is any significant correlation between teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs. Before performing the Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis, there are few things that are required to be performed in order not to violate some important assumptions. These assumptions are as follow:

 Two variables must be in continuous values

 Absence of significant or extreme outliers

 Assumption of normality

 Assumption of linearity and homoscedasticity.

The first three assumptions have been well met even though the author has discovered some outliers in his earlier findings. The outlier findings were discussed under Preliminary Analyses section. Since there is no evidence of any significant or extreme outlier, this second assumption is not violated. Further, the TEIP and SACIE-R scales are also found to be assumed to be of normal distribution, thus meeting the assumption of normality. However, Assumption 4 need to be checked and will be discussed below.

Homoscedasticity is defined as the error term (‘noise’ or random disturbance between dependent and independent terms) is assumed to be uniform across all independent variables

(Statistics Solutions, 2013). Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) recommended the use of residual scatterplots to provide a visual representative of assumption of linearity and homoscedasticity. If the

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY scatterplot displays any indication of curves, then the assumption of linearity is violated. If the array of dots is showed to be scattered uniformly while moving along the scale, then the assumption of homoscedasticity is not violated. If the dots are found to be concentrated around the particular location, then the assumption of homoscedasticity is not valid. Figure 6-6 displays the scatterplot of

TEIP scores against SACIE-R scores.

Figure 6-6: Scatterplot of TEIP scores against SACIE-R scores

This scatterplot does not show any indication of curves between two independent variables.

Again, there is an even distribution of dots between two horizontal lines and it shows that the assumption of linearity and homoscedasticity is not violated.

Results

Pearson’s correlation coefficient is computed to evaluate the correlation between Japanese in-service teachers’ overall teaching-efficacy and overall attitudes. As shown in Table 6-24, there is a weak and significantly positive correlation between TEIP and SACIE-R scores, r = .307, n = 187 and p = .00 (p < .001, 2 – tailed). Evans (1996) suggested the absolute value of r that was tabulated in Table 6-25 served as a rule of thumb to interpret the value of Pearson’s correlation coefficient:

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Table 6-24: Pearson’s correlation coefficient between TEIP and SACIE_R means

TEIP_mean SACIE_mean TEIP_mean Pearson Correlation 1 .307** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 187 187 SACIE_mean Pearson Correlation .307** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 187 187 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 6-25: Interpretation of Pearson’s correlation coefficient

Pearson’s correlation coefficient Interpretation .00 - .19 “very weak” .20 - .39 “weak” .40 - .59 “moderate” .60 - .79 “strong” .80 - 1.0 “very strong”

Question #3.2: Which type of teaching efficacy is the best predicator of Japanese in-service teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education?

This last question investigates which type of teaching efficacy would be the best predicator of Japanese in-service teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs. This involves the relationship between one dependent and at least two independent variables (Tabachnick

& Fidell, 2001). Before conducting the multiple regression tests, there must be a need to check for validity of important assumptions:

 Normality of residuals distribution

 Linearity and homoscedasticity

 Absence of outliers

 Independence of observations by using Durbin-Watson statistic

 Absence of multicollinearity by inspection of Tolerance/VIF values

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Based on this list of assumptions, the first thing is to check for the absence of outliers in order not to violate one of the assumptions. According to Fields (2009), we should use standardized residuals to convert the residuals into z-scores and check whether the standardized residuals should lie between -3.29 and +3.29. Standardized residuals with an absolute value greater than 3.29 would be the cause of concern as there is a high possibility that indicates the presence of outliers. As shown in the Table 6-26, an analysis of standard residuals was carried out, which demonstrated that the data contained no outliers (Std. Residual Min = -2.160 and Std. Residual Max = 2.921) which falls within the range of -3.29 and +3.29.

Next, to check the normality of residual distribution, two visual tests based on the histogram with a superimposed normal curve and Normal P-P plot of residuals were carried out to test the normality of the residual distribution. As seen from Figures 6-7 and 6-8, the residuals are able to fit the normal distribution well; in Figure 6-7, the histogram of standardized residuals indicated that the data contained approximately normally distributed errors as seen from the graph that most of the residuals are able to fall within the normal distribution curves. In Figure 6-8, the normal P-P plot of standardized residuals, it shows most of the points lie quite perfectly on the straight line. Next, the assumption of linearity and homoscedasticity is needed to verify by using the scatterplot diagram. If the scatterplot does not show any systematic pattern or indication of curvilinear, then it is safe to assume that there is no violation of assumption of linearity and homoscedasticity. Based on the

Figure 6-9, this scatterplot of standardized residuals does not show any indication of curves between residuals and predicted values. Again, there is an even distribution of dots between two horizontal lines and it shows that the assumption of linearity and homoscedasticity is not violated.

Table 6-26: Investigation for any presence of outliers.

Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation N Predicted Value 2.3518 3.0585 2.7030 .13454 183 Residual -.84939 .85152 .00000 .28750 183 Std. Predicted Value -2.610 2.642 .000 1.000 183 Std. Residual -2.914 2.921 .000 .986 183

a. Dependent Variable: SACIE_mean

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Figure 6-7: Histogram of residuals

Figure 6-8: Normal P-P plot of regression of residuals

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Figure 6-9: Scatterplot of the predicted values versus the residuals

Next, Field (2009) pointed out that the residual errors must not be correlated to each other and in order to test the independence of residual errors, Durbin-Watson test is needed to be carried out to test for any correlation between errors. As a rule of thumb, Durbin-Watson value should be between 1.5 and 2.5 to ensure that there is no correlation between the residual errors. Based on the results in Table 6-27, the Durbin-Watson value is 2.09 which fall within the acceptable range. This shows that the assumption of independent errors has been met.

Table 6-27: Multiple Regression Model Summary

Adjusted R Std. Error of the Model R R Square Square Estimate Durbin-Watson 1 .397a .158 .132 .30039 2.090

Predictors: (Constant), Level of confidence in teaching disabled students, Disabled family members, Ef_instructions, Ef_behaviour, Ef_collaborate Dependent Variable: SACIE_mean

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Lastly, the data must not show any multicollinearity which is a common problem in the regression analysis. Multicollinearity exists when the independent variables are highly correlated to each other and the value of r is shown to be equal or more than .90 (Pallant, 2005). SPSS could perform a collinearity diagnosis by referring to the values of Tolerance and Variance Inflation Factor

(VIF). Tolerance is defined as how much the specified independent variable is not predicted by other independent variables. If the Tolerance value is found to be less than .10, it indicates that there will be high multiple collinearity among variables. As for the VIF, it is an inverse of Tolerance value; and if VIF above 10, then it will be a concern of multicollinearity. Based on the results as tabulated in

Table 6-28, the data has met the assumption of multicollinearity indicates that the multicollinearity is not violated (Ef_behaviour, Tolerance = .493, VIF = 2.029; Ef_collaborate, Tolerance = .423, VIF

= 2.367; Ef_instructions, Tolerance = .386, VIF = 2.592; Location in Japan, Tolerance = .947, VIF =

1.056; Level of confidence in teaching disabled students, Tolerance = .906, VIF = 1.104). The rule of thumb that does not violate the multicollinearity defines that Tolerance must be more than .10 and

VIF must be smaller than 10.

Table 6-28: Results of the collinearity tests

Collinearity Statistics Model Tolerance VIF 1 (Constant) Ef_behaviour .509 1.966 Ef_collaborate .421 2.376 Ef_instructions .381 2.628 Disabled family members .940 1.064 Level of confidence in teaching disabled students .894 1.118

In conclusion, all these various tests have proven that all the assumptions have not been violated and therefore, it is safe to assume that running the multiple regression is reliable and valid

(Field, 2009).

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In executing the multiple regression analysis, the relative importance of the three different types of teaching-efficacy (efficacy in using inclusive instructions, efficacy in collaborations and efficacy in managing behaviour) as predictors of teachers’ overall attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom is tested by multiple regression analysis. In addition to three teaching-efficacy variables as independent variables, the effect of two demographic variables: presence of disabled family members and level of confidence to teach students with special needs were controlled for. All variables were entered simultaneously to the model by using

ENTER method to see if these independent variables predicted Japanese teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom.

Table 6-29: Results of regression test

ANOVAa Model Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 2.807 5 .561 6.222 .000b Residual 14.979 166 .090 Total 17.786 171

a. Dependent Variable: SACIE_mean b. Predictors: (Constant), Level of confidence in teaching disabled students, Disabled family members, Ef_instructions, Ef_behaviour, Ef_collaborate

Using the ENTER method, it is found that all three types of teaching-variables and two demographic variables explain a significant amount of variance in Japanese in-service teachers’ attitudes towards students with special needs in the regular classroom F(5, 171) = 6.222, p < .05, R2

2 = .158, R adjusted = .132)

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Table 6-30: Determination of type of teaching-efficacy as predicator of teachers’ attitudes

Std Beta t Ef_behaviour -.104 -1.044 Ef_collaborate .081 .739 Ef_instructions .301 2.609** Disabled family members .145 1.974* Level of confidence in teaching disabled students .096 1.271 Model statistics F5,171= 6.222 *** R2 .158 Note: * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.

The analysis shows that the efficacy in using inclusive instructions is the most powerful predicator of overall attitudes (Std beta = .301, t(172) = 2.609, p < .05). In addition, the beta value for those teachers with disabled family members was found to be lower but it was considered to be powerful enough to predict the teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs.

In summary, in order to improve the attitudes towards the students with special needs in the regular classroom, Japanese teachers need to work on and improve their teaching-efficacy in using inclusive instructions.

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6.3 SINGAPORE CASE STUDY

All participants were selected from two regions: Central and Eastern regions through cluster-random sampling method and they were invited to participate in the study on the basis of voluntary participation. A three-part English questionnaire was administered to all participants and the completed questionnaires were collected at their educational institutions.

6.3.1 Demographic data Out of 183 Singaporean in-service teachers, 116 (63.4%) primary school teachers and 67

(36.6%) secondary school teachers participated in the survey forms. All of them indicated their genders in which 50 (27.3%) of the respondents were male while 113 (72.7%) female respondents participated in this survey. The respondents seemed to be distributed quite evenly among three age groups: 26 – 35 years old (33.3%), 36 – 45 years old (35.5%) and 46 years and older (26.9%). Those teachers who were in the age group of 26 years old and younger was the smallest group who participated in this survey forms. Most of teachers were teaching between 1 and 5 years (32.9%) as compared to other teachers who taught between 6 and 10 years (26.6%), 11 – 15 years (16.8%), 16 –

20 years (10.4%) and more than 20 years (13.3%).

Most of the respondents’ education qualifications were relatively high; the majority of them obtained their Bachelor degrees (55.6%), followed by those who obtained Masters’ degrees or PhD

(21.7%). Smaller percentage of them graduated from high schools and polytechnics (6.1% and

15.6% respectively). More than half of the respondents were regular teachers (64.7%) while the rest of them were teacher-aides (7.5%), school leaders - school principals and vice principals- (3.5%) and middle managers (24.3%).

Almost more than half of the respondents (53.6%) reported that they had their significant interactions with persons with disabilities (which could be friends, neighbours, colleagues or schoolmates) while 46.4% of respondents reported no interaction with persons with disabilities.

More than half of them (81.9%) reported that they did not have any family members with disabilities.

At their schools, the majority of them had taught their students with special needs before (72.3%).

Only 27.7% of them had never taught students with special needs before at their schools.

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When asked to share about their teaching trainings in special needs education, nearly all of them (78.7%) did not attend their trainings in special needs education. When it came to their knowledge about law or policies pertaining to special/inclusive education, many of them (80.9%) had at least some knowledge about the disability-related legislation and school policies. Again, the demographic study revealed that most of them felt that they had average level of confidence (46.1%) to teach students with special needs as compared with other groups who felt that they had no

(10.7%), little (38.2%) or high (5.1%) confidence level to teach them.

Finally, the respondents were asked to respond to whether they had any teaching experience with specific disability groups. Most of them had taught students with ADHD (80.3%), learning disability (66.9%) and autism (56.7%) in the decreasing order. Only 7.9% taught students with visual impairment which accounts for the smallest number of teachers who had experience in teaching visually impaired students. A summary of respondents’ demographic background information is tabulated in the Table 6-31.

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Table 6-31: Demographic profiles of Singaporean teachers Variable Groups Frequency Percent Primary School 116 63.4 Grade level Secondary School 67 36.6 Male 50 27.3 Gender Female 133 72.7 25 years old and younger 7 3.8 26 – 35 years old 61 33.3 Age 36 – 45 years old 65 35.5 46 years old and older 49 26.9 High school 11 6.1 Diploma 28 15.6 Highest qualification Bachelor’s degree 100 55.6 Postgraduate degree 39 21.7 School leader (Principal, Vice Principal) 6 3.5 Middle manager 42 24.3 Current teaching post Regular teacher 112 64.7 Teacher-aide 13 7.5 1 – 5 years 57 32.9 6 – 10 years 46 26.6 Years of teaching 11 – 15 years 29 16.8 experience 16 – 20 years 18 10.4 21 years and more 23 13.3 Yes 97 53.6 Interaction with PWDs No 84 46.4 Taught disabled Yes 125 72.3 students No 48 27.7 Family members with Yes 30 18.1 disabilities No 136 81.9 Took special needs Yes 39 21.3 education training No 144 78.7

Took Diploma in Yes 5 13.2 Special Education No 33 86.8

Took Certificate in Yes 15 39.5 Special Needs No 23 60.5

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None 34 19.1 Knowledge about Little 92 51.7 disability laws and Average 44 24.7 policies Good 8 4.5 None 19 10.7 Confidence level to Little 68 38.2 teach disabled students Average 82 46.1 Good 9 5.1 Taught students with Yes 143 80.3 ADHD No 35 19.7 Taught students with Yes 119 66.9 learning disability No 59 33.1 Taught students with Yes 42 23.6 intellectual disability No 136 76.4 Taught students with Yes 101 56.7 autism No 77 43.3 Taught students with Yes 103 57.9 hearing impairment No 75 42.1 Taught students with Yes 20 11.4 multiple disabilities No 155 88.6 Taught students with Yes 42 24.4 physical difficulties No 133 75.6 Taught students with Yes 11 6.2 CAPD No 166 93.8 Taught students with Yes 44 25.7 language and speech No 127 74.3 delay Taught students with Yes 14 7.9 visual impairment No 164 92.1

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6.3.2 Preliminary Analysis There is a need to check for these following items: any missing data; 1) internal consistency reliability of TEIP and SACIE-R scale; 2) tests for normality of data; and 3) any outliers.

Likewise in the Japanese case study, short description of Singaporean teacher respondents to TEIP and SACIE-R scales are discussed to give the readers an idea of how they responded to each question differently. Figures 6-10 and 6-11 depicting the outcomes of these TEIP and SACIE-R scales are provided below. As seen from the stacked bar charts, it can be seen that Singaporean teachers seemed to agree with all TEIP statements as their responses ranging from ‘Somewhat agree’ to ‘Strongly Agree’ occupied more than half of the stacked bar charts.

Unlike the TEIP questionnaires, SACIE-R questionnaires consist of mixture of negative and positive statements. There are 10 negative statements out of total 15 items. Looking at the results,

Majority of Singaporean teachers were very concerned that their disabled students might not be accepted by their peers. They also felt that they did not have sufficient knowledge and skills to provide enough attention for their disabled students. As the result, they concurred that they would feel more stressed to include them in their classrooms. They also admitted that it would be terrible if they had a disability and even dreaded at their thought that they might end up with a disability.

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Figure 6-10: Stacked bar chart on Singaporean teachers’ responses to TEIP questionnaires

Source: Created by author

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Figure 6-11: Stacked bar chart on Singaporean teachers’ responses to SACIE-R questionnaires

Source: Created by author

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Results shows that Cronbach’s alpha for overall TEIP scale for the present Singapore case study sample is r = 0.927 which shows that this instrument remains very reliable. Cronbach’s alpha for three different subscales of the TEIP are, r = 0.86 for efficacy in managing behaviours, r = 0.85 for efficacy in collaboration and r = 0.81 for efficacy in using inclusive instructions. All these

Cronbach’s alpha for overall TEIP scale as well for three subscales remain in the acceptable range (at least 0.65; DeVellis, 2003).

Table 6-32: Cronbach’s alpha results for TEIP scale Overall TEIP Efficacy in managing Efficacy in Efficacy in using behavior collaboration inclusive instructions 0.927 0.860 0.847 0.811

Cronbach’s alpha for overall SACIE-R scale for the present Singapore case study sample shows r = 0.70 and for the subscales: sentiments, attitudes and concerns are: r = 0.67, r = 0.74, and r = 0.66 respectively. All alpha values fall within the acceptable range (at least 0.65).

Table 6-33: Cronbach’s alpha results for SACIE-R scale Overall SACIE-R Sentiments Attitudes Concerns 0.701 0.673 0.740 0.655

Next, the test for the normality of distribution of TEIP and SACIE-R scores is carried out.

Table 6-34 shows the table of descriptive statistics for two variables. From this table, both skew and kurtosis values for TEIP and SACIE-R are quite close to zero and by looking at the z-scores it is found that all these values fall within the acceptable range of 1.96. Therefore, the results demonstrate that it does not violate the assumption of normal distribution.

Table 6-34: Descriptive Statistics for skewness and kurtosis

Skewness Kurtosis N Statistic Std. Error z-score Statistic Std. Error z-score TEIP 181 -.312 .181 -1.72 .290 .359 0.81 SACIE-R 181 .113 .181 0.62 -.017 .359 0.05

To further verify the normality of the distribution, Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) and

Shapiro-Wilk tests could confirm whether if p-value is greater than .05, it shows that the

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY distribution of the sample is not significantly different from the normal distribution. In other words, if p-value is greater than .05, it is likely to be normal (Field, 2009: pg. 144). Visual tests i.e.

Histogram test and Normal Q-Q plot are used to visually inspect whether the variables obey the normal distribution. In Normal Q-Q plot, if most of the points fall on the ideal straight line, this line obeys a normal distribution.

Table 6-35: Tests of Normality for TEIP and SACIE-R

Kolmogorov-Smirnova Shapiro-Wilk Statistic df Sig. Statistic Df Sig. TEIP .072 181 .24 .986 181 .065 SACIE-R .063 181 .073 .992 181 .457 a. Lilliefors Significance Correction

Figure 6-12: Histogram of TEIP and SACIE-R values

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Figure 6-13: Normal Q-Q plot of TEIP and SACIE-R

As shown in the Table 6-35 and Figures 6-12 and 6-13, a Kolmogorov-Smirnova (p > .05) and Shapiro-Wilk (p > .05) tests (Razali & Wah, 2011; Shapiro & Wilk, 1965) and a visual inspection of histograms and normal Q-Q plots showed that the values were approximately and reasonably normal distributed with a skewness of -.312 (SE = .181) and .113 (SE = .181) and a kurtosis of .290 (SE = .359) and -.017 (SE = .359) for TEIP and SACIE-R scales (Crammer, 1998;

Crammer & Howitt, 2004; Doane & Seward, 2011)

Lastly, the Boxplot test identified few outliers (not extreme outliers). Upon checking the questionnaire data records, the scores are found to be genuine and there is no particular abnormality about these data. Therefore, there is no further action about these outliers.

Figure 6-14: Boxplot of TEIP and SACIE-R scores

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6.3.3 Analysis of Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes This section intends to discuss the findings and presents the analysis of Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs. Quantitative research is carried out to answer three key research questions: what are the key variables that affect their teaching-efficacy and attitudes and how the teacher’s teaching-efficacy affects their attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs

Research Question #1 - Teaching self-efficacy:

For this particular question on teaching-efficacy, there are two key questions: What is the level of their teaching-efficacy and what kind of variables that affect their teaching-efficacy?

Question #1.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ perceived teaching efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs in Singapore?

Mean scores and standard deviations on the overall TEIP scale including the three types of teaching-efficacy subscales have been tabulated in the Table 6-36.

Table 6-36: Means and standard deviations of Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy No of items Mean Value SD Efficacy in managing behaviour 6 4.47 0.64 Efficacy in collaboration 6 4.20 0.69 Efficacy in using inclusive instruction 6 4.56 0.56 Overall teaching-efficacy 18 4.41 0.56

The overall mean score of Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy is 4.41 (SD = 0.56). A mean above 3 indicates that Singaporean teachers possess quite high sense of teaching-efficacy.

Compared to the previous studies, Singaporean teachers are quite close to Finnish teachers with an overall score of 4.53 and South African teachers with an overall score of 4.63 (Savolainen et al.,

2012). Based on the analysis of subscales, Singaporean teachers have the highest efficacy in using inclusive instructions (M = 4.56), followed by efficacy in using managing behavior (M = 4.47) and efficacy in collaboration (M = 4.20).

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Question #1.2: What are the child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables that affect their teaching self-efficacy in Singapore?

Results show that characteristics of Singaporean teachers in terms of gender, educational level and degree of knowledge about disability-related legislation/policies may significantly affect their overall teaching-efficacy scores.

A) Educational levels An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs based on their educational levels. The independent variables are: 1) Primary School; 2) Secondary School. An independent sample t-test indicates that TEIP score (overall teaching-efficacy) are significant higher for secondary school teachers (M = 4.57, SD = 0.51) than primary school teachers (M = 4.32, SD =

0.57), t(179) = -2.921, p = .004 < .05 (two-tailed), d = 0.460 which indicates moderate effect size.

Table 6-37: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational Levels in Singapore Educational Levels in Singapore 95% CI for Primary School Secondary School Mean t df M SD N M SD N Difference TEIP 4.32 .57 116 4.57 .51 65 -.418, -.081 -2.921* 179 *p < .05.

B) Gender An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare their teaching-efficacy towards them based on their genders. The independent variables are: 1) Male; 2) Female. An independent sample t-test indicates that TEIP score (overall teaching-efficacy) are significant higher for male

Singaporean teachers (M = 4.61, SD = 0.57) than female teachers (M = 4.33, SD = 0.54), t(179) =

2.99, p = .003 < .05 (two-tailed), d = 0.495 which indicates moderate effect size.

Table 6-38: Means and Standard Deviations: Genders in Singapore Genders in Singapore 95% CI for Male Female Mean t df M SD N M SD N Difference TEIP 4.61 .57 49 4.33 .54 132 .094, .457 2.99* 179 *p < .05.

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C) Knowledge about legislation or policies pertaining to inclusive education

One-way ANOVA test is conducted to compare the Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy based on their level of knowledge about disability-related legislation and policies. The independent variable represented their knowledge about disability legislation or policies which are represented by

4groups: 1) None; 2) Little; 3) Average; and 4) Good. The dependent variable was average score of

Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs.

Table 6-39: Descriptive Statistics of overall TEIP score by level of knowledge

Level of 95% Confidence Interval for Mean knowledge about legislation and policies N Mean SD Std. Error Lower Bound Upper Bound None 34 4.1058 .53688 .09207 3.9185 4.2931 Little 91 4.4592 .54480 .05711 4.3457 4.5726 Average 43 4.4905 .46529 .07096 4.3473 4.6337 Good 8 4.7806 .73018 .25816 4.1702 5.3911 Total 176 4.4132 .55442 .04179 4.3307 4.4957

There is a significantly difference at the p < .05 level among groups as determined by

2 one-way ANOVA F(3, 172) = 5.543, p = .001, p = .09. Post-hoc comparative analyses using

Tukey’s HSD test at the p < .05 level further indicates that those teachers with at least little knowledge about legislation and policies (Good: M = 4.78, SD = .73; Average: M = 4.49, SD = .47;

Little: M = 4.46, SD = .54) showed more statistically positive teaching-efficacy than teachers possessing no knowledge (M = 4.11, SD = .54). There were no statistically differences among the rest of groups.

Table 6-40: One-Way ANOVA of overall TEIP score by Level of knowledge

Source Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 4.742 3 1.581 5.54 .001 Within Groups 49.049 172 .285 Total 53.791 175

*p < .05.

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Table 6-41: Post-hoc Analysis of TEIP score by Level of knowledge

95% Confidence Interval (I) Level of knowledge (J) Level of knowledge Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound None Little .007* -.8536 .7214 Average .011* -1.0798 .4915 Good .008* -1.4625 .1791 Little None .007* -.7214 .8536 Average .989 -.4413 -.0149 Good .363 -.8948 -.2564 Average None .011* -.4915 1.0798 Little .989 .0149 .4413 Good .494 -.6622 -.0329 Good None .008* -.1791 1.4625 Little .363 .2564 .8948 Average .494 .0329 .6622 *. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

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Research Question #2 - Attitudes:

This question asks two key questions: What is the level of their attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs and what kind of variables that affect their attitudes?

Question #2.1: What is the level of in-service teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in Singapore?

Mean scores and standard deviations of the overall SACIE-R scale including the three subscales have been recorded in the Table 6-42.

Table 6-42: Means and standard deviations of Singaporean teachers’ attitudes N Mean Value SD Sentiments subscale 5 2.74 0.46 Attitudes subscale 5 2.48 0.45 Concerns subscale 5 2.19 0.45 Overall attitudes 15 2.47 0.31

Based on the results, the overall mean score of Singaporean teachers’ attitudes is 2.47 (SD

= 0.31) slightly above the neutral midpoint of 2 within the range of 1 to 4 and it would imply that

Singaporean teachers are quite positive towards the inclusion of students with special needs in their regular classrooms. With a closer look at the subscales, Singaporean teachers had the most positive sentiments towards interacting with persons with disabilities (M = 2.74, SD = 0.46). Their attitudes

(M = 2.48, SD = 0.45) towards including students with students with special needs in the regular classrooms and their concerns (M = 2.19, SD = 0.31) about what would happen were quite close to the neutral mid-point.

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Question #2.2: What are the child-related, teacher-related and environment-related variables that affect their attitudes in Singapore?

A) Educational levels

An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the Singaporean teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs based on their educational levels. The independent variables are: 1) Primary School; 2) Secondary School. An independent sample t-test indicates that SACIE-R score (overall attitudes) are significant higher for secondary school teachers

(M = 2.55, SD = 0.31) than primary school teachers (M = 2.42, SD = 0.30), t(179) = -2.75, p = .007

< .05 (two-tailed), d = 0.425 which indicates moderate effect size.

Table 6-43: Means and Standard Deviations: Educational levels in Singapore. Educational Levels in Singapore 95% CI for Primary School Secondary School Mean t df M SD N M SD N Difference SACIE-R 2.42 .30 116 2.55 .31 65 -.223, -.037 -2.75* 179 *p < .05.

B) Received special needs education trainings An independent sample t-test is conducted to compare the Singaporean teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs based on whether they have received their special needs education trainings. The independent variables are: 1) Yes; 2) No. An independent sample t-test indicates that SACIE-R score (overall attitudes) are significant higher for teachers who underwent their special needs education trainings (M = 2.58, SD = 0.37) than those teachers who have never received any training (M = 2.44, SD = 0.29), t(179) = 2.24, p = .03 < .05 (two-tailed), d =

0.434 which indicates moderate effect size.

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Table 6-44: Means and Standard Deviations: Received special needs education training Received special needs education trainings 95% CI for Yes No Mean t df M SD N M SD N Difference SACIE-R 2.58 .37 39 2.44 0.29 142 .032, .25 2.24* 179 *p < .05.

C) Level of confidence to teach students with special needs

One-way ANOVA test is conducted to explore the impact of level of confidence to teach students with special needs on the Singaporean teachers’ attitudes. Participants are divided into 4 groups according to the level of confidence to teach students: 1) None; 2) Little; 3) Average; and 4)

Good. The dependent variable was average score of Singaporean teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs.

Table 6-45: Descriptive Statistics of overall SACIE-R score by level of confidence

95% Confidence Interval for Mean (II) Level of Std. confidence N Mean SD Error Lower Bound Upper Bound None 19 2.37 .28 .064 2.24 2.51 Little 67 2.35 .28 .034 2.28 2.41 Average 81 2.57 .28 .032 2.51 2.63 High 9 2.75 .38 .127 2.46 3.04 Total 176 2.47 .31 .023 2.43 2.52

There is a significantly difference at the p < .05 level among groups as determined by

2 one-way ANOVA F(3, 172) = 11.181, p = .000, p = .16. Post-hoc comparative analyses using

Tukey’s HSD test at the p < .05 level further indicates that those teachers with high confidence (M =

2.75, SD = .38) or average confidence (M = 2.57, SD = .28) showed more statistically positive attitudes than teachers possessing little (M = 2.35, SD = .28) or no confidence (M = 2.37, SD = .28).

There were no statistically differences among the rest of groups.

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Table 6-46: One-Way ANOVA of overall SACIE-R score by Level of confidence

Source Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 2.781 3 .927 11.181 .000 Within Groups 14.259 172 .083 Total 17.039 175

*p < .05.

Table 6-47: Post-hoc Analysis of overall SACIE-R score by Level of confidence

95% Confidence Interval (I) Level of confidence (J) Level of confidence Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound None Low .987 -.1691 .2192 Average .033* -.3920 -.0112 High .007* -.6827 -.0782 Low None .987 -.2192 .1691 Average .000* -.3500 -.1033 High .001* -.6707 -.1403 Average None .033* .0112 .3920 Low .000* .1033 .3500 High .292 -.4413 .0836 High None .007* .0782 .6827 Low .001* .1403 .6707 Average .292 -.0836 .4413 *. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

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Research Question #3 - Relationships between teaching-efficacy and attitudes

Question #3.1: How does their teaching-efficacy correlate with their attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in Singapore?

Again, several tests are needed to check if these important assumptions are not violated before performing the Pearson correlation. These assumptions are as follow:

 Two variables must be in continuous values

 Absence of significant or extreme outliers

 Assumption of normality

 Assumption of linearity and homoscedasticity.

The first three assumptions have been well met even though the author has discovered some outliers in his findings. The outlier findings have been discussed under Preliminary Analyses section. Since there is no significant or extreme outlier, this second assumption is not violated.

Further, the TEIP and SACIE-R scales are found to be assumed to be of normal distribution, thus meeting the assumption of normality. However, Assumption 4 need to be checked and will be discussed below.

If the scatterplot is shown to display any indication of curves, then the assumption of linearity is violated. If the array of dots is showed to be scattered uniformly while moving along the scale, then the assumption of homoscedasticity is not violated. If the dots are found to be concentrated around the particular location, then the assumption of homoscedasticity is not valid.

Figure 6-15 displays the scatterplot of TEIP scores against SACIE-R scores.

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Figure 6-15: Scatterplot of TEIP scores against SACIE-R scores

This scatterplot does not show any indication of curves between two independent variables.

Again, there is an even distribution of dots between two horizontal lines and it shows that the assumption of linearity and homoscedasticity is not violated.

Pearson’s correlation coefficient is computed to evaluate the correlation between

Singaporean in-service teachers’ overall teaching-efficacy and overall attitudes. As shown in Table

6-48, there is a moderate and significantly positive correlation between TEIP and SACIE-R scores, r

= .403, n = 187 and p = .00 (p < .001, 2 – tailed).

Table 6-48: Pearson’s correlation coefficient between TEIP and SACIE_R means

TEIP_mean SACIE_mean TEIP_mean Pearson Correlation 1 .403** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 181 181 SACIE_mean Pearson Correlation .403** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 181 181 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

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Question #3.2: Which type of teaching efficacy is the best predicator of Singaporean in-service teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education?

Before conducting the multiple regression tests, there must be a need to check for validity of important assumptions:

 Normality of residuals distribution

 Linearity and homoscedasticity

 Absence of outliers

 Independence of observations by using Durbin-Watson statistic

 Absence of multicollinearity by inspection of Tolerance/VIF values

As shown in the Table 6-49, an analysis of standard residuals was carried out, which demonstrated that the data contained no outliers (Std. Residual Min = -3.096 and Std. Residual Max

= 2.425) which falls within the range of -3.29 and +3.29.

Table 6-49: Investigation for any presence of outliers.

Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation N Predicted Value 1.9636 2.87263 2.4731 .16459 176 Residual -.62725 .67501 .00000 .26510 176 Std. Predicted Value -3.096 2.425 .000 1.000 176 Std. Residual -2.332 2.510 .000 .986 176

a. Dependent Variable: SACIE_mean

Based on these Figures 6-16, 6-17 and 6-18, these tests show that the residuals are able to obey the normality of residual distribution and the tests of linearity and homoscedasticity are not violated.

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Figure 6-16: Histogram of residuals

Figure 6-17: Normal P-P plot of regression of residuals

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Figure 6-18: Scatterplot of the predicted values versus the residuals

Next, Durbin-Watson test is needed to be carried out to test for any correlation between errors. As a rule of thumb, Durbin-Watson value should be between 1.5 and 2.5 to ensure that there is no correlation between the residual errors. Based on the results in Table 6-50, the Durbin-Watson value is 2.15 which fall within the acceptable range. This shows that the assumption of independent errors has been met.

Table 6-50: Multiple Regression Model Summary

Adjusted R Std. Error of the Model R R Square Square Estimate Durbin-Watson 1 .527a .278 .257 .26897 2.150

Predictors: (Constant), Level of confidence in teaching disabled students, SchoolType, Ef_instructions, Ef_behaviour, Ef_collaborate Dependent Variable: SACIE_mean

Lastly, the data must not show any multicollinearity among the variables as shown in the

Table 6.51. Based on the results, the data has met the assumption of multicollinearity indicates that the multicollinearity is not violated (Ef_behaviour, Tolerance = .411, VIF = 2.431; Ef_collaborate,

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Tolerance = .437, VIF = 2.286; Ef_instructions, Tolerance = .394, VIF = 2.540; School Type,

Tolerance = .920, VIF = 1.087; Level of confidence in teaching special needs students, Tolerance

= .764, VIF = 1.309). The rule of thumb that does not violate the multicollinearity defines that

Tolerance must be more than .10 and VIF must be less than 10.

Table 6-51: Results of the collinearity tests

Collinearity Statistics Model Tolerance VIF 1 (Constant) Ef_behaviour .411 2.431 Ef_collaborate .437 2.286 Ef_instructions .394 2.540 School Type .920 1.087 Level of confidence in teaching disabled students .764 1.309

In conclusion, all these various tests have proven that all the assumptions have not been violated and therefore, it is safe to assume that running the multiple regression is reliable and valid

(Field, 2009).

In executing the multiple regression analysis, three different types of teaching-efficacy

(efficacy in using inclusive instructions, efficacy in collaborations and efficacy in managing behaviour) were used as predictors of teachers’ overall attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom. In addition to three teaching-efficacy variables as independent variables, the effect of two demographic variables: school type (primary school vs secondary schools) and level of confidence to teach students with special needs were controlled for.

All variables were entered simultaneously to the model by using ENTER method to see if these independent variables predicted Singaporean teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom.

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Table 6-52: Results of regression test

ANOVAa Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 4.741 5 .948 13.106 .000b Residual 12.299 170 .072 Total 17.039 175

a. Dependent Variable: SACIE_mean

b. Predictors: (Constant), Level of confidence in teaching disabled students, School Type, Ef_instructions, Ef_behaviour, Ef_collaborate

Using the ENTER method, it is found that all three types of teaching-variables and two demographic variables explain a significant amount of variance in Singaporean in-service teachers’ attitudes towards students with special needs in the regular classroom F(5, 170) = 13.106, p < .05, R2

2 = .278, R adjusted = .257)

Table 6-53: Determination of type of teaching-efficacy as predicator of teachers’ attitudes

Std Beta t Ef_behaviour -.156 1.534 Ef_collaborate .441 4.475*** Ef_instructions -.276 -2.661** School Type .099 1.460 Level of confidence in teaching disabled students .183 2.456* Model statistics F5,170= 13.106 *** R2 .278 Note: * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.

The analysis shows that the efficacy in collaboration is the most powerful predicator of overall attitudes (Std beta = .441, t(176) = 4.475, p < .05). In addition to this, efficacy in using inclusive instructions (Std beta = -.276, t(176) = -2.661, p < .05) and level of confidence to teach students with special needs (Std beta = .183, t(176) = 2.456, p < .05) predicts the teachers’ attitudes positively

In summary, Singaporean teachers need to work on their teaching-efficacy to collaborate with parents, colleagues and other stake holders in order to improve their attitudes towards students with special needs in the mainstream schools.

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SUMMARY

This chapter discussed the quantitative results based on the analysis of data collected from the questionnaires that were distributed to Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers. 189

Japanese and 183 Singaporean in-service teachers employed in the primary and secondary schools completed their questionnaires during the 2016 school year. Data analysis commenced with the preliminary analysis which involved rigorous testing for any missing values, presence of outliers and violations of any assumption of normality. Short description of questionnaire items with responses from participants was also discussed adequately. Data reliability tests were also carried out to ensure the reliability of the research instruments. Pilot-testing procedures were discussed too. Short summary of the results arising from the analyses of two country case studies is discussed below.

Japan case study

With the regards to the first question that tested the general level of teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards students with special needs in the mainstream schools, Japanese teachers had slightly above-average teaching-efficacy with the highest level of self-efficacy in using inclusive instructions and lowest level of efficacy in collaboration. For example, in terms of efficacy of using inclusive instructions, many Japanese teachers did very well in their area which they were very confident in designing learning tasks so that the individual needs of students with special needs could be well-accommodated. On the other hand, they felt that they fared poorly in the area which required them to collaborate with parents or other professionals to manage students with special needs in the classroom. Speaking of their attitudes towards students with special needs, the overall attitude towards the inclusion of students with special needs was quite positive.

In response to the question that discussed what kind of background and demographic variables could affect their teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs. It was found that the Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy could be higher if they had any relevant experience in teaching students with special needs. Furthermore the level of knowledge about local legislation or policy related to inclusive education could also affect their sense of efficacy.

Their sense of efficacy to teach students with special needs could be improved if they had their solid

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY knowledge about the local legislation or disability-related policies. Not only significant findings were discussed, non-significant findings i.e. school education levels (primary versus secondary school teachers) and geographical locations (rural versus urban teachers) were also discussed. Based on the findings, there was no conclusive evidence to prove that primary or secondary school teachers had higher sense of teaching-efficacy. Similarly, there was no significant finding that proved that there was any difference between rural and urban teachers’ teaching-efficacy. As for their attitudes towards the inclusion of their disabled children, it was found that teachers with disabled family members were more positive towards their children. In addition, like the previous findings about their teaching-efficacy, teachers with high level of confidence to teach or manage students with special needs in their classrooms, would adopt more positive attitudes towards them. Unlike the teaching-efficacy, rural teachers were found to display more positive attitude than urban teachers.

With the further investigation, male rural teachers were found to show more positive attitudes than male urban teachers.

The result also showed that their teaching-efficacy was indeed significantly associated with their attitudes. Simply put, the stronger the belief the Japanese teachers had in their abilities to manage students with special needs, it was more likely that they would adopt their positive attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms. With the further investigation to identify which type of teaching-efficacy, the result showed that their efficacy in using inclusive instruction seemed to be the best predictor of their attitudes towards students. That would mean that Japanese teachers needed to further improve in certain areas to improve their delivery of inclusive instructions to students with special needs. By enhancing this kind of efficacy, it would more likely translate into more positive attitude towards their students.

Singapore case study

Likewise, Singaporean teachers had also quite strong sense of teaching-efficacy with the highest level of self-efficacy in using inclusive instructions and lowest level of efficacy in collaboration. Speaking of their attitudes towards students with special needs, the overall attitude towards the inclusion of students with special needs was also quite positive.

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In response to the question that discussed what kind of background and demographic variables could affect their teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs. It was found that the Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy could be higher if the teachers were male and if they taught at secondary schools. Furthermore the level of knowledge about local legislation or policy related to inclusive education could also affect their sense of efficacy.

Their sense of efficacy to teach students with special needs could be improved if they had their solid knowledge about the local legislation or disability-related policies. In terms of their attitudes towards the inclusion of their disabled children, it was also found that teachers who taught at secondary school were more likely to adopt more positive attitudes towards students with special needs.

Teachers who received their relevant training in special needs education would also display more positive attitudes towards them. Teachers with high level of confidence to teach or manage students with special needs in their classrooms would adopt more positive attitudes towards them as compared with other teachers with lesser confidence.

The result also showed that their teaching-efficacy was indeed significantly related to their attitudes. With the further investigation to identify which type of teaching-efficacy, the result showed that their efficacy in collaboration with professionals or parents seems to be the best predictor of their attitudes towards students.

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CHAPTER 7. ANALYSIS OF QUALITATIVE STUDY

7.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims to present the analysis and the results of the qualitative findings based on the interview with Singaporean and Japanese in-service teachers. There is a need to develop deeper understanding of Japanese and Singaporean mainstream teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools and how their attitudes and teaching-efficacy translated into their consequential actions in the real-life classrooms. A qualitative investigation is required to unravel the core reasons pertaining to why-, how- and what- questions about their perceptions towards students with special needs. For instance, a simple example is provided: why did some teachers with no relevant teaching experience with students with special needs feel differently from other teachers who have taught them before?

Therefore, this chapter intends to follow up and expand on selected quantitative findings that are already discussed in the previous chapter with the narrative account shared by the teacher interviewees. In addition, it also illustrates the need to understand the in-service teachers’ views about what kind of challenges they have encountered and how these challenges can be effectively addressed to manage students with special needs in their regular classrooms. This could serve as a useful guidance for the policies and programmes in both countries.

7.2 OBJECTIVES OF THIS STUDY

In pursuance of further analysis of the reasons behind the disparities in these particular findings, the quantitative data will serve as a secondary data source to design and develop the interview schedule for the semi-structured interviews with teachers in qualitative research. By using sequential mixed method that uses both features of quantitative and qualitative researches, it broadens the understanding of teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes in the implementation of actual inclusive practices in the classrooms (Ben-Yehuda et al., 2010; Dunne, 2002; Kim, 2011;

Lewis & Burman, 2008) and their teachers’ actual teaching practices in their regular classrooms

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(Creswell, 2003). At the same time, this study also seeks to explore what the in-service teachers’ actual understanding of inclusive education and how they enact their inclusive practices in their classrooms. These additional research questions are not asked during the quantitative findings but they serve as an extension in the qualitative research to better understand how the teachers implement their inclusive practices within the cultural-historical theoretical framework (Engelbrecht,

Nel, Nel, & Tlale, 2015). Artiles and Dyson (2005) proposed that cultural-historical framework enabled the qualitative researchers to investigate how cultural practices, history and country context influence the implementation of teaching practices in the inclusive classroom in the local contexts

(Kozleski et al., 2007). By doing this, this helps to provide an academic lens of how different cultural-historical factors influence the understanding of teachers’ attitudes and efficacy towards students with special needs and their actual implementation of inclusive teaching practices

(Geldenhuys & Wevers, 2013). Kozleski et al. (2007) cited an example of how the international contexts i.e. inclusive education policies could either encourage or oppose the school policies within the local school contexts and how the social interaction and reactions of individuals in these different school contexts (referred to classrooms) could be mediated by these various factors. Therefore, a greater in-depth exploration is required to investigate what kind of main challenges Japanese and

Singaporean teachers faced with including students with special needs and how they identified the solutions to address these challenges.

7.3 JAPAN CASE STUDY

7.3.1 Brief summary of quantitative study The selected quantitative findings on Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes indicate that teachers with previous experience in teaching children with special needs have higher sense of teaching-efficacy than those with limited or no experience with them. This finding is found to be consistent with the previous studies which Barco (2007), Campbell and Gilmore (2003), and

Parasuram (2006) found that teachers with more experiences with children with special needs often felt more confident to teach students with special needs.

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Secondly, teachers with disabled family members and relatives have more positive attitudes than those without any disabled family and relatives. This finding is supported by the similar study conducted in Victoria, Australia and Harvey (1985) found that teachers who had family members or close friends with special needs had positive attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom.

7.3.2 Description of Japanese in-service participants A total of 38 participants were interviewed and this sample provides demographic profiles of these participants in the Table 7-1. Each participant is given a unique pseudonym to protect anonymity and only pseudonym is used in this entire chapter. The sample includes 18 primary and

20 secondary school teachers which constitute almost half of the sample. Male and female teacher are quite evenly distributed in the sample: 18 female and 20 male teachers. Nearly all of them (30) had Bachelor degrees as their highest qualification and the rest (8) received their postgraduate degrees. Almost 37% (14) of them are regular school teachers, followed by school leaders, (26%, 10) chief teachers (21%, 8) and special educators (16%, 6). The years of teaching experience at their schools (whether or not they taught students with special needs) ranged from 2 to 38 years. More than half of them (87%; 33) have received their trainings in special needs education, some (5%; 2) of them had little training and the rest (8%; 3) did not receive any training at all. Likewise for those who had their considerable interaction with persons with disabilities outside school (it can include their disabled family members), 23 (61%) of them had their consideration interaction with them while the rest had little or no interaction with persons with disabilities. Lastly, the majority of participants (34; 89%) reported that they have taught students with special needs at their schools while only 4 of them (11%) had little or never taught them before.

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Table 7-1: Summary of Demographic Information of Japanese Interview Participants Person School Teaching Gender Qualification Yrs of Special Disable family Previous Level Post teaching needs members/ teaching experience training relatives experience with disabled students FP01 Primary School Female Bachelor 33 Yes Yes Yes leader FP02 Primary Teacher Female Bachelor 2 Yes No Yes FP03 Primary Chief Female Post graduate 24 Yes No Yes teacher KP01 Primary Chief Female Bachelor 38 Yes No Yes teacher KP02 Primary Special Male Bachelor 21 Yes No Yes educator KP03 Primary Teacher Male Bachelor 1 Little No Little KP04 Primary School Male Bachelor 35 Yes No Yes leader OG01 Secondary School Female Bachelor 36 Yes No Yes leader OG02 Secondary Teacher Male Bachelor 7 Yes No Yes OG03 Secondary Teacher Female Post graduate 7 Yes No Yes OG04 Secondary Chief Female Bachelor 16 Yes No Yes teacher TP01 Primary School Male Bachelor 29 Yes No No leader TP02 Primary Teacher Female Bachelor 37 Yes No Yes TP03 Primary Teacher Female Post graduate 7 Yes No Yes TP04 Primary Special Female Bachelor 11 Yes Yes Yes educator YS01 Secondary School Female Bachelor 31 Yes No Yes leader YS02 Secondary Special Male Bachelor 21 Yes No Yes educator YS03 Secondary Teacher Male Post graduate 3 Yes No Yes YS04 Secondary Teacher Female Post graduate 36 Little Yes Yes EP01 Primary School Male Bachelor 30 No No Yes leader EP02 Primary Chief Female Bachelor 25 No No Yes teacher EP03 Primary Chief Male Bachelor 10 Yes Yes Yes teacher KH01 Secondary Teacher Male Bachelor 21 Yes Yes Yes

KH02 Secondary School Male Bachelor 30 Yes Yes No leader

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Person School Teaching Gender Qualification Yrs of Special Disable family Previous Level Post teaching needs members/ teaching experience training relatives experience with disabled students KH03 Secondary Teacher Female Bachelor 12 Yes No Yes KH04 Secondary Special Female Bachelor 30 Yes No Yes educator IB01 Secondary Chief Male Post graduate 26 Yes No Yes teacher IB02 Secondary School Male Bachelor 37 Yes No No leader IB03 Secondary Special Male Bachelor 25 Yes No Yes educator IB04 Secondary Teacher Female Bachelor 3 Yes No Yes YP01 Primary Teacher Male Bachelor 14 Yes No Yes YP02 Primary Teacher Female Bachelor 33 Yes No Yes YP03 Primary Teacher Female Bachelor 17 Yes No Yes YP04 Primary School Male Post graduate 38 Yes Yes Yes leader IG01 Secondary Chief Male Bachelor 38 No No Yes teacher IG02 Secondary Chief Male Post graduate 18 Yes No Yes teacher IG03 Secondary School Male Bachelor 18 Yes No Yes leader IG04 Secondary Special Male Bachelor 19 Yes No Yes educator Source: Created by author

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7.3.3 Analysis of Japanese teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy Theme on teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs

This section discusses the interview data on the Japanese teachers’ teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs. The quantitative results from the previous chapter revealed that some teachers with previous or current experience in teaching students with special needs were found to have higher sense of teaching-efficacy than those without any relevant experience. We need to understand why teachers with teaching experience in teaching students with special needs were perceived to have better sense of teaching-efficacy.

Previous experience in teaching students with special needs

Out of the interview sample, only 4 teachers reported that they did not have any or had little previous experience in teaching students with special needs. Further analysis of this group of teachers who had no previous teaching experience revealed that one of them had just joined the teaching force less than a year ago and this was the first time he came into encounter with his students with special needs. He was trying to learn how to teach his students with special needs. The other three teachers were currently in the leadership position and were no longer teaching students.

The remaining 34 teachers reported that they had previous or current teaching experiences in teaching students with special needs. The study showed that degree of experience in teaching students with special needs affected the level of teaching-efficacy; the more experienced the teachers are, the greater confidence they hold towards the students with special needs. The participants’ views are divided into three subthemes and are discussed below. a) Mastery Experience

Most teachers with their previous/current experiences in teaching students with special needs concurred that learning how to manage students with special needs and their conditions was a never-ending learning process that began when they embarked on their full-time teaching careers.

Most of them recounted that through their hands-on experiences in class, they gained their better understanding of their students’ conditions and needs. They also adopted several trial-and-error methods to improve their teaching strategies. However those with no previous/current teaching

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experience often found that they could not handle the students with special needs well and they often cited their reasons as lack of experience and hands-on practical skills.

“I just joined the teaching force less than a year ago and I had no previous teaching experience with students with special needs. This was my first time to teach ADHD students and some of them are not used to one another. They could be very rowdy and often caused class disruptions sometimes. I don’t have any adequate working knowledge about their condition. Once the ADHD student suddenly became rowdy, everyone in my classroom would become rowdy. I was terribly stressed and I did not know how to handle this chaotic situation”. (KP03 – Little experience)

On the other hands, those experienced teachers were able to tap on their wealth of experiences in dealing with students with special needs. All of them fully understood that every child had his/her own unique needs and devised various teaching methods to meet their needs well.

“Nothing beats experiences. I have been teaching them for a long time and I could tell easily whether this child has certain kind of disability. My knowledge and understanding are largely based on my experiences. I know many young teachers are frustrated with coping their students with special needs and I often tell them to be patient. They need time to know them [their students] better”. (YP04 – Had previous experience)

They pointed out that though both children had similar type of disability, they required differentiated attention for their unique learning needs. For example, two autistic children would require different kinds of support even though they shared the same type of disability. Teachers repeatedly tested and modified their teaching pedagogies over the time in order to better accommodate the different needs of students. Even though their methods might not work as expected, they were willing to persist in their quests for better teaching pedagogies to better meet their needs.

“I think that I have many successful methods that really work for me. In the beginning of my teaching career, I failed many times but I did not want to give up on them. I always believe that there is a hope and there is always a solution to this problem. Over the years, I have learnt tremendously about different types of disabilities and I have customized my teaching methods to meet different child’s needs. Not only that, I am good at establishing strong rapport with their parents and I could offer them my listening ear ... like how we could make things better for their child so that they could improve in their results or behaviours”. (KP03 – Had previous experience)

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b) Vicarious experiences

According to Bandura, Adams, Hardy and Howells (1980), vicarious experience improved their senses of teaching-efficacy as observing others and modelling them helped them to develop teaching strategies to deal with their students. Based on these responses from two different groups of teachers, those teachers without any hands-on experience did not have many opportunities to observe their experienced teachers in their real-life classrooms either. Previous studies showed that a beginning teacher should be encouraged to participate fully as an observer to understand the actual teaching dynamics and to model their experienced colleagues’ good teaching practices. “Model competencies is an especially influential factor when observers have a lot to learn and models have much they can teach them by instructive demonstration of skills and strategies” ( Bandura, 1997; pg

101).

“I am not sure about their teaching methods [as] I did not get any chance to observe their teaching practices in their classrooms yet. I hardly knew my colleagues well and the learning curve is quite steep. There are a lot of things for me to learn so it takes more time to model good teaching practices from them. But I am looking forward to more class observations in the near future so that I could improve my teaching methods. (KP03 – Little previous experience)

However, experienced teachers usually knew their colleagues well and were very familiar with their teaching styles. It easily created an opportunity for them to develop strong rapport with one another over the years and they often participated in their classroom observations proactively.

Therefore, experienced teachers tended to have more vicarious experiences than their younger teachers.

“I have observed four different kinds of teachers [in my teaching career]. First, teachers are able to understand their students’ needs very well. Second, teachers know how to set realistic goals for their students [with their special needs]. Third, they are able to maintain a healthy balance of classroom order and unforeseen distraction. Lastly, teachers are able to display their professional knowledge and effective strategies for their students. I think it is useful to learn how different teacher adapted their teaching methods to meet their students’ needs. It is also good for me to follow and learn their methods for my teaching”. (YP04 – Had previous experience)

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c) Leadership versus teaching position

In the study, I discovered that the school leaders of these schools tended to have the least experience in working with students with special needs as compared to other groups of teachers.

Before becoming the principals of the school, they had been teaching at their schools more than 15 years. During their teaching years, many of them were not trained to identify their disabilities or did not have any experience to manage students with special needs. At that time (more than 20 years ago), they had not heard the word “ADHD” before and this defined the students who have their short attention span and had difficulty controlling their behaviours which were not appropriate for their ages. Due to the lack of knowledge about students with special needs, they often labelled them as mischievous, attention-seeker or slow learner. Only when they began to realise the existence of such disabilities, they were no longer teaching at that point of time.

“When I was teacher (around 20 years ago), I did not know the word called ‘ADHD’. I only knew that there were a few naughty students in my class. I was not aware that those ‘naughty students’ actually had their hidden disabilities and we always scolded them for being’ waga mama’”. (KH02 – No previous experience)

Most of them also shared that in their earlier teaching careers, many parents often kept their child at home and prevented them from attending their schools. Moreover, the level of awareness of disability in the students was very low in the past as compared to the present day. Nowadays, all teachers including school leaders are required to be aware about students with different kinds of special needs and they must identify ways to provide differentiated support for their learning needs.

“Being a principal and teacher is very different thing. As a principal, I do not have to work closely with the students with special needs though I know that we have to do something to help students with special needs to cope with their learning needs. Before I became a principal, there was very little diagnosis of child before he or she enrolled in their primary schools. So many of them had their disabilities undetected until they found out about their disabilities at their later age. At that time, when I was a primary school teacher, I suspected that some of my students could have some kinds of disabilities but they were not properly diagnosed. At that time, information about disability was so scarce and we really did not know whether we had actually taught students with special needs. Because of that, if you were to ask me whether I had any confidence to teach students with special needs, I don’t think I could teach them well”. (TP01 – No previous experience)

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To summarise, four teachers who had no previous experiences in teaching students with special needs reported that they felt that they were constrained by lack of mastery and vicarious experiences that improved their sense of teaching-efficacy. The data also showed that degree of teaching experience with students with special needs could affect the level of teaching-efficacy. Also, it revealed that teachers, who claimed that they had no previous experiences, were usually in their leadership positions that did not require them to teach or interact with students with special needs.

This kind of situation should be viewed seriously as it showed that they were not sufficiently exposed to working with students with special needs.

Theme on attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs

This section discusses the interview data on the Japanese teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs. The quantitative results from the previous chapter indicated that teachers with disabled family members displayed more positive attitudes towards students with special needs than those without disabled family members. Based on the interview data, the participants’ views are divided into three subthemes and are discussed below.

Disabled family members

Out of the sample, only 7 teachers reported that they had their family members or relatives with special needs and the rest did not have any family members or relatives with disabilities. Most of those with family members felt that due to their constant interaction with their disabled kin, they gained better understanding of their conditions and were more empathetic towards them. Various themes are categorised under three thematic headings below. a) Welcome inclusion as a philosophy

These teachers with disabled family members or relatives reported that they had already developed their concept of inclusion even before they embarked on their teaching careers. Some of them might not have their immediate family members with special needs but they had some degrees of interaction with their extended family members with special needs. This helped them to develop the philosophy of inclusion not only to the in-group but also to out-group. Thus they could create an overall sense of inclusive community in their regular classrooms. One teacher shared:

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“I have a cousin who is wheelchair bound and I don’t interact a lot with her. But I have an opportunity to communicate with her whenever there is any family gathering. We were very supportive of her and we often tried our best to help her. I think it helps me to appreciate the true meaning of inclusion even though I do not have any immediate family member with special needs. It allows me to show my concern to anyone including my students with special needs”. (YS04 – disabled cousin) b) Importance of family supports

Many teachers recognised the value of providing supports for their disabled kin as they felt as part of their family responsibility to support them. Through their experiences with their family members or relatives, they understand how their students with special needs struggled with their schools and they felt that it was also part of their teaching responsibility to ensure that they should be provided with support for their learning needs.

“My own daughter is also using wheelchair and I have been supporting her throughout her life. She is extremely independent and she would try her best to depend on her own to move around. Sometimes there were some barriers which could be challenging for her to overcome, and we had to help her. Same thing goes for me when some parents came to me to talk to me about their children with special needs. I immediately agreed to let them come to my school and I make sure that the support was adequately provided for them”. (YP04 – disabled daughter) c) Inculcate positive values and empathy

Teachers with disabled family members/relatives reported that they learnt the importance of positive family values and empathy for the lesser privileged members. They learnt to practise their acceptance and responsiveness to their kin’s needs and incorporated them into their life-learning experiences. With the perception of a positive and trusting relationship between teachers and their disabled kin, they often set an example for other teachers and students to show respect and empathy towards their classmates/students with special needs.

“I have my brother who is autistic and I could understand how he feels not being able to relate to the world. He tends to live in his own world and it is quite hard for him to come out to the world readily. Sometimes he could easily throw his tantrums for no reasons and we learn to be patient with his fits. Because of my experience with my brother, I often told my students to be more understanding towards his classmates with special needs. I said: ‘They were very brave to come to study with you and we should respect them for their bravery and willingness to study with you’. I always emphasize the value of respect and empathy towards the lesser privileged and to appreciate the value of diversity”. (KH01 – disabled brother)

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In summary, the interview data showed that teachers with their disabled family members displayed more positive attitude towards students with special needs due to the interaction with their kin. They understood the value of inclusion in their family and they went on to practise the concept of inclusion in their classroom. They wanted to encourage other students to be more empathetic and welcoming towards their classmates with special needs as part of their teaching responsibilities.

However, it needs to consider that even if teachers do not have any disabled family members, they should display their positive attitudes towards students with special needs. This is where the training should come in to educate them and to expose them to students with different needs.

Theme on challenges of including students with special needs in their regular classrooms

This section discusses how the Japanese teachers shared their challenges of including students with special needs in their classrooms. This finding was not based on the quantitative findings but it provided an extension to investigate why teachers had their difficulties in including their students. Four main challenges based on their responses were identified and discussed below:

 Academic issues

 Negative perception towards students with special needs

 Concerns about ‘ijime’ (bullying incident)

 Lack of special needs education training

Academic issues

Most of the informants felt that they would be qualified enough to implement inclusive class practices in their classrooms if they would be well-prepared to meet the diverse needs of students with special needs. Several themes emerged in their responses for their concerns about the academic issues pertaining to teaching students with special needs and it mainly arose from the perceived level of in-class support and large class size to meet their needs of students with special needs.

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a) Lack of manpower and in-class support

The majority of the respondents cited the lack of manpower issue and quality support for their students with special needs in both regular and special needs classrooms in the mainstream schools. Some students with special needs attended separate special classrooms in the mainstream schools with limited amount of supports outside normal school hours. One teacher, KP03, was a regular class teacher and at the same time he was put in charge of coordination of special needs educators. He shared:

“If there is any student with special needs who needs extra attention, we have to get part-time special needs educators from outside to teach them in the special needs classroom. But the special needs educator only spend 1 or 3 hours with them and could only come to this school two or three times a week to teach them. I think it is not sufficient for them to lean more with the special needs educators” (KP03, regular teacher)

He also shared that even students with mild disabilities were allowed to study with their peers in the regular classrooms, there were not enough teaching manpower to cope with the increasing demands of teaching students with special needs in the regular classroom. Teachers did not have time to develop and customize the individualized education plan for them. In Japan, the structure of education was often based on the group emphasis and uniformity. It does not call for any special provision of support and attention paid to students with special needs and it makes it challenging for teachers to provide quality support to them. He further added on to state that:

“In the regular classroom, we do not have sufficient support for students with special needs. We have students with mild disabilities – ADHD, Asperger’s syndrome and high-functioning autism. But we cannot always pay our attention on them as we also need to handle other normal students. In Japan, we have to be fair to everyone, ensuring that everyone would receive equal treatment. I can only provide minimal support to them if they face any difficulty in their studies. That is what I can only do for them. If we could have more in-class support like additional teacher in my classroom, it would be very useful for my students. But we do not have enough manpower to help us” (KP03, regular teacher)

Another teacher also added his view that inclusive education was not easy to be implemented as it involved a lot of like-minded individuals to come together and make this happen. The responsibility of implementing inclusive education in the classroom does not lie mainly on the teachers but it also involves concerted efforts from different stakeholders.

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“We are still far from achieving the true inclusive education in Japan. I don’t see the reason why inclusive education is necessary since special schools serve the students with special needs so well. So why bother to reinvent the whole wheel? Just because of the inclusive education, every student should be included in the classroom but what about the manpower issue? We need more specialised teachers to teach students with special needs but we do not have enough manpower. We should not expect only teachers are solely responsible to make things happen. Everyone should play the part to make inclusive education happen. So what is the benefit of having inclusive education since we have not resolved all these outstanding issues?” (OG01 – School leader) b) Class size

Class size is also one of the biggest concerns shared by teachers about the inclusion of students with special needs. Participants expressed their everyday frustrations about their heavy workload compounded by large class size in their schools and felt that the large class size was one of the main impediments to the successful implementation of inclusive education in their schools.

“We have to teach many large classes every day and we have to make sure that all of the students including students with special needs are well-catered for and this is no easy feat for us. Usually we teach a class of 30 students and the student-teacher ratios are quite high. It is impossible for us to give equal attention to all students given the class size, let alone with our interaction with students with special needs” (TP02 – Regular teacher)

Negative perception towards students with special needs

The majority of the respondents cited that parents’ concerns and the social acceptance of students with special needs were the main challenges to their implementation of inclusive class practices. a) Parents’ concerns

Almost all respondents admitted that they had ongoing issues with their disabled students’ parents and many of them differed in their views on whether their students with special needs should be placed in the special or regular classrooms in their regular schools, or they should receive some amount of in-class support in their regular classrooms. There were some parents who refused to let their child to study with other students with special needs as they worried that inclusion of students with special needs could affect their child’s learning pace or violent students might harm their child.

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“Some parents could be quite unreasonable and they could not accept the fact that their child was studying with the other students with special needs in the same classroom. They felt that the teaching pace has been affected and sometimes, students with special needs especially with behavioural problems sometimes hit their child. They told us that they preferred students with special needs not to be included in the same classroom as their children. They felt the students with special needs created some negative impacts on their children’s learning development” (EP03 – Chief teacher)

Other teachers also feedbacked that parents of students with special needs could be challenging to be reasoned with as some parents refused to recognise the fact that their students had their disability. They insisted that their child was normal and should be included in the regular classroom. Even in the normal classroom, the parents preferred their child not to receive any support for their learning needs as it could help to train their child to act ‘normal’ like other students.

“It really depends on the parents’ expectation of their children with special needs. Some parents refuse to let their child attend the special classroom because of the negative social stigmas attached to the special classrooms. They just wanted their child to be in the regular classroom receiving same treatment from their teachers, rejecting any special support for them. There is a negative perception that Japanese society should embrace the conformity, not to value or respect the individuality”. (FP01 – School leader) b) Social perception towards persons with disabilities

Some informants shared that the main stumbling block was the negative social perception towards the persons with special needs in Japan. In Japan, disabilities especially physical and mental disabilities have long been considered as a taboo subject where everyone subscribes to the ideal of normalcy and very often they were hidden away by their shame-filled family members from the public view. One participant expressed his viewpoint based on his own experience:

“In Japan, even though students with special needs are Japanese, could speak Japanese and look like Japanese, the society still views them differently. It is part of the Japanese culture. Japan is a harmonious society which everyone should not be expected to stick out like the nail otherwise they will get hammered. In order not to upset the harmony, those people who are considered to be different have to be excluded. That’s why many parents worry for their children with special needs that if their child did not try to behave as normal as the other children, they would be “hammered”“ (IG04 – Special needs teacher)

Concerns about ‘ijime’ (bullying)

About half of the teachers interviewed shared their concerns about ijime committed by the students on students with special needs. According to Naito and Gielen (2005), and Yamada, Fuji,

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Schratter and Kanno (2014), ijime was more likely to happen in the classroom as compared to other countries. It is essential that teachers have to ensure their intervention could prevent any incident of bullying towards the weaker students especially students with special needs. Most teachers, who were interviewed, opposed any student who committed ijime on students with special needs in schools. However, the victims of the ijime often were reluctant to inform their teachers and that was why this grave issue concerning ijime against students with special needs often went unnoticed by teachers.

“I am aware of the gravity of this ijime issue that happens at most schools. Often times the victims refused to tell their teachers about it. In fact, we take our serious stance against ijime behaviours. However, we cannot prevent it from happening as our teachers are not there all the time. It could happen during the break time or in the toilet when the teachers are not around. Some students made fun of students with special needs, mocking at their queer behaviours or inability to understand in the class.” (IB02 – School leader)

Lack of special needs education training

Most teachers readily agreed that they lacked of sufficient knowledge about inclusive education. They felt powerless to deal with the demands of inclusive teaching and they ended up feeling stressed and frustrated. They also agreed that special needs education trainings were necessary to equip them with adequate knowledge.

“We did not have any knowledge about inclusive education as we were not taught about it before. I have heard a lot about inclusive education and do you mean that by conducting an inclusive classroom, we have to teach all kinds of students? My level of knowledge is very limited and I don’t think I am confident to handle a class of few students with special needs. I don’t know how to communicate with hearing-impaired students or to handle a child with emotional outburst.” (IB04 – Regular teacher)

Other participants shared about the quality of special needs education training. Some of them had taken few modules on inclusive education before and they commented that the courses did not provide them with practical strategies.

“If you want me to implement inclusive education in my classroom, you need to tell me how to do this. The course did not tell me anything and they only tell me the types and conditions of disabilities. I don’t want the dry concept as I can easily find the information from the books or internet. What I want is a set of practical solutions to help me to handle those students with special needs. The basic knowledge is not enough for me to be an inclusive classroom teacher! ” (YP01 – Regular teacher)

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To sum up all these challenges faced by the interviews, they stressed the importance of in-class support mechanism, quality of trainings that offer practical advice and right perception towards students with special needs. They also acknowledged ijime as one of the challenges to inclusive education

Theme on strategies to address challenges

The informants offered various strategies to address their challenges that they faced in carrying out their inclusive class practices through various strategies. Interviews with teachers indicated that resource support, stronger collaboration with parents and modification of teaching approach were the most commonly used strategies to ensure that students with special needs could be effectively included in their regular classrooms. The theme of coping strategies is divided into three subthemes and this is discussed below.

Resource support

The participants shared various resource supports to meet the diverse needs of students with special needs including the awareness-raising programmes on inclusive education, improving the existing infrastructure, ensuring assistive technology devices are well in place and improving the teachers’ teaching competence through teaching training programmes. They were responsible to facilitate healthy interaction among students through various activities so as to increase level of awareness of students with special needs among their peers. One of the participants who was in charge of special class for students with special needs shared:

“We have different textbooks for particular subjects for special and regular classrooms. In fact, we have to make our own textbooks for students with special needs who attend our special classrooms. Secondly, the class size for the special classroom is much smaller than the regular classroom; usually we have 6 to 8 students with special needs which are much fewer than the normal classroom which could accommodate up to 30 students. Third, students with special needs in the special classrooms are required to undertake special activities to promote independence through acquisition of necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes. (KP02 – Special needs teacher)

Stronger collaboration with parents

Greater collaboration with their students’ parents could help teachers to be more aware of their students’ needs as the parents usually know better about their child’s conditions at home. In this

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way, involving parents actively especially during the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) could improve their collaboration with their parents. At the same time, teachers had their opportunities to update their parents of their school progress and could discuss openly the child’s strength and interests.

“We wanted to work closely with the parents and our schools periodically organise PTA meetings with parents. We hope that PTA could provide us an opportunity to share our concerns about students with special needs and to allow other parents to understand them. Apart from PTA, we also had our informal channels to discuss the lessons plans for their children”. (OG02 – Regular teacher)

Modification of teaching pedagogies

They shared how to modify their inclusive class instructions to ensure that students with special needs would be fully included in the classroom learning. One teacher, who used to teach the regular classroom for more than 20 years, was recently reassigned to be in charge of the special class.

He shared with his experience with many students with special needs in the regular classroom. He often attempted to modify his teaching pedagogies to meet different needs of students with special needs. He summed up his points that “every small step is important”.

“First, I have to check with their school progress regularly. If I suspect that they could not manage to do their work, I will either provide some support for certain areas. If some students could complete their tasks within certain period of time, then I think I would not provide any support to allow them to manage their work on their own. Secondly, if I want to stretch their ability a bit further, I would vary the difficulty of the questions and see how whether they are able to attempt some questions within their abilities. If they cannot solve this math problem at all, I will provide full support. If I think they could do partly, I will provide certain amount of support. It is all about striking the balance of how much I could provide support to my students” (KP02 – Special needs educator)

Summing up, interview participants have attempted to put in efforts to identify different kinds of strategies to help students with special needs cope well with their lessons in the regular classrooms. Teaching strategies: provision of adequate resources, strong collaboration with parents and modification of individual teaching instructions were considered for all students including students with special needs.

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7.4 SINGAPORE CASE STUDY

7.4.1 Brief summary of quantitative study Male teachers displayed their higher sense of teaching-efficacy towards their female counterparts. This finding is also not consistent with the previous studies that indicated that female teachers had higher perceived teaching-efficacy than their male teachers (Forlin et al., 2010; Gao &

Mager, 2011; Romi & Leyser, 2006).

Apart from teachers’ teaching attitudes, secondary school teachers displayed more positive attitude towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools than their primary school teachers. This finding also contradicts with the previous researches which found that primary school teachers were supposed to have more positive attitudes than secondary school teachers

(Forlin et al., 2010; Woodcock, 2011). At the same time, teachers who received their training in special needs education exhibited more positive attitudes than those counterparts who did not receive any training. This study is found to be consistent with the previous studies conducted by Avramidis and Norwich (2002) and Malinen (2013).

7.4.2 Description of Singaporean in-service participants A total of 15 participants were interviewed and this sample provided their demographic profiles of these participants in the Table 7-2. The sample included 8 primary and 7 secondary school teachers. The majority of them were female teacher: 12 female and 3 male teachers. Roughly half of them received Postgraduate degrees (7), followed by Bachelor degrees (4) and Diploma (4).

Nearly all of them were evenly distributed among school leaders, middle managers and teachers (4 for each position) except for special educator (3). Nearly half of them (53%; 8) have received their trainings in special needs education and the rest (47%; 7) did not receive any training at all. 12

(80%) of them had their consideration interaction with them while the rest (20%) had little or no interaction with persons with disabilities. Lastly, all of them have taught students with special needs before.

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Table 7-2: Summary of Demographic Information of Singaporean Interview Participants Person School Teaching Gender Qualification Yrs of Special Interaction Previous Level Post teaching needs with PWDs teaching experience training experience with disabled students OS01 Secondary Teacher Female Postgraduate 15 Yes No Yes

OS02 Secondary Middle Male Postgraduate 19 Yes Yes Yes manager

OS03 Secondary School Male Bachelor 37 No No Yes leader

CP01 Primary School Female Postgraduate 22 No Yes Yes leader

CP02 Primary Teacher Female Diploma 11 No Yes Yes

CP03 Primary Middle Female Bachelor 19 No Yes Yes manager

CP04 Primary Special Female Diploma 9 Yes Yes Yes educator

BH01 Secondary School Female Postgraduate 33 No Yes Yes leader

BH02 Secondary Teacher Female Bachelor 11 Yes Yes Yes

BH03 Secondary Special Female Diploma 10 Yes Yes Yes educator

BH04 Secondary Middle Female Postgraduate 15 Yes Yes Yes manager

PC01 Primary Middle Female Postgraduate 26 Yes Yes Yes manager

PC02 Primary School Female Postgraduate 14 No No Yes leader

PC03 Primary Special Female Diploma 6 Yes Yes Yes educator

PC04 Primary Teacher Male Bachelor 10 No Yes Yes

Source: Created by author

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7.4.3 Analysis of Singaporean teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy Theme on teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs

This section discusses the interview data on the Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy towards inclusion of students with special needs. The quantitative results from the previous chapter revealed an interesting finding that male teachers were found to have higher sense of teaching-efficacy than the female teachers. We need to understand why male Singaporean teachers were perceived to have better sense of teaching-efficacy than the female counterparts.

Gender

Out of the teacher sample, 12 female and 3 male teachers were invited for the interview to share their thoughts on why Singaporean male teachers were found to have higher sense of teaching-efficacy than their female colleagues. Their views about the disparity of teaching-efficacy based on the gender are discussed below: a) Teachers’ stress threshold

In terms of gender difference, female teachers reported their higher level of classroom stress from students’ misbehaviours which could be trivial or extreme, and they were found to have lower level of efficacy to manage misbehaviour due to previous history of unsuccessful experiences.

Female teachers were more likely to be sensitive to externalising student behaviours especially from students with special needs with behavioural problems or emotional outburst. One of the female interviewees shared her experience about her student with violent disposition and she felt that she had little confidence in managing his behaviour.

“I used to have a student with fiery temper and I was so stressed by his rude behaviour. There was one time he kept on screaming for no reason and I was shocked by him”. (BH02 – Female teacher)

She went on to describe how her student with behavioural problem created a serious problem for her students. Up to this point, she had no choice to ask her male colleagues to intervene in the situation to prevent further injury to other students and to fear for her own safety.

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When his classmates provoked him, he lifted up the table or chair and threw it at his classmates. This boy had very extreme behaviour and when this incident happened, I had to ask my male colleagues to stop his rowdy behaviour. I could not stop him because he is too strong for me. He might have hit me instead of his classmates”. (BH02 – Female teacher)

After a little prompting for further details on the consequences, she remarked: “Since that incident, this boy was expelled from school. And I heard that he had created problems at another school”. Based on her response, it indicates that she was not fully confident to handle students with special needs especially with the violent behaviour. Another few female teachers also shared their similar thoughts about this situation and one of them said:

“I think male teachers are physically stronger and they are able to deal with students with violent behaviours better” (CP04 – female teacher)

However, male teachers viewed disabled students’ misbehaviours as less problematic and they were usually confident to deal with them physically. In the case of any violent behaviour among students, male teachers were more confident to intervene to prevent physical conflicts from escalating. Two male teachers shared their experiences:

“At my previous school, I had a mild autistic girl and she got into a fight with a boy in my class. I managed to step in between them on my own and took her out of my classroom to calm her down. I believe they would need more time to grow out of this phase”. (OS02 – Male teacher)

Another male teacher recounted his experience as a teacher in his secondary school and he shared of how he managed to prevent the dangerous act committed by one of the students with special needs.

“I used to have a boy who often liked to disrupt the class. At my time, I was not sure of what kind of disability he had but I know that he was very naughty. He also played truant from school and repeatedly failed his exams. The extreme case was that he stole the fire extinguisher from the school compound and attempted to start fire. I had to intervene to stop him from starting fire in the school. Luckily there was no fire incident but he started fire at the shopping centre instead.” (OS03 – Male teacher) b) Conflict between work and family roles

Another area of concern raised was the female teachers had greater conflicts between their work and family roles. They dealt with their maternal responsibility at home and sometimes needed

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to go on their long maternity leaves to care for their children. It affected their sense of teaching efficacy to plan extra time for their class preparation and improvement in their teaching pedagogies for students with special needs.

“I think the male teachers have fewer responsibilities as they do not have to take care of their children unlike us female teachers. We have to cook food after work and take care of our children. That would rob us of little time to plan for the next day lesson. It was even harder when I was pregnant and I had to take leave to go for medical check-up. It could affect my teaching as I could not spare any time to think of the ways to help students with special needs in my class”. (BH02 – Female teacher) c) Gender-specific cultural influences

Based on the interviews, the social and cultural context in Singapore still recognised that

Singapore was a rather male-centric society in which gender gaps remained existent. According to the newspaper article on “Five gender gaps Singapore women still face in 2015” written by

Liang-Lin (2015), although Singaporean women had their fair share of their access to education, job, pay, health protection and protection from violence, gender gaps remain existent in this society. In this report women are still not equally paid as their male colleagues for the same job and they are still under-represented at the senior management levels. In this school context, this may explain the finding regarding the female teachers’ lower perceived teaching-efficacy. However, it is important to caution that most of the teachers interviewed were females and there were only three male teachers, risking the possible research bias. One of the female teachers shared her thought and her viewpoint may not necessarily represent the overall view held by female teachers.

“I think men and women are viewed differently in terms of emotionally, physically and biologically. I think female teachers can be better teachers than the male teachers as they are seen to be more caring and devoted to students. That’s why I think their attitudes towards students with special needs are usually more positive than the male teachers. However, if you are talking about the confidence level or efficacy, it is a different story. Usually the men would get more career opportunities that would give them more challenges and opportunities. They were less burdened with family responsibilities so it helps to free up their time to concentrate on their careers. It helps them gain more confidence to take on bigger challenges like dealing with tough kids” (OS01 – Female teacher)

To summarise, the majority of female teachers felt that they were less confident to manage students with special needs especially with their violent disposition. They felt that their male counterparts were in the better positions to manage them better as they were perceived to be

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physically stronger to control the disruptive acts and they did not view their disabled students’ behaviours as problematic. Besides that, female teachers had to manage their conflicts between their family and careers. In Singapore social context, gender gaps between the males and females remain existent though cases of gender discrimination against the female employees are virtually rare.

Because of that, Singaporean men usually received more opportunities that helped to boost their sense of teaching-efficacy than their female counterparts to take on more challenges.

Theme on attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs

The quantitative research on Singaporean teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs revealed that secondary school teachers and teachers who had attended the special needs education training displayed more positive attitude towards the students with special needs as compared to primary school teachers and teachers who did not undergo any special needs education training.

Educational level

The questionnaire results showed that secondary school teachers were more likely to display more positive attitudes towards students with special needs as compared to primary school teachers.

This finding is also found to contradict with most previous studies that confirmed that primary school teachers held more positive attitudes towards them. Some of the secondary school teachers who used to teach at their former primary schools felt that they adopted more positive attitudes towards students with special needs. None of primary school teachers had ever taught at the secondary schools before. Based on their responses, four main themes were identified and discussed below: a) Classroom and Instructional Management

Most primary school teachers expressed their concerns about including students with special needs in an already large class size which averaged around 35 to 40 students. However, the class size tends to be smaller in secondary schools, averaging around 25 to 30 students, enabling secondary school teachers to provide extra attention and time for students with special needs.

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“I used to teach at primary school before and [I could recall that] teaching primary school students was really tough for me to manage the classroom. The class size in primary school was much bigger than the secondary school as I had to teach 40 students in primary school in the past. [However] when I taught at secondary school, I have taught taught 30 students. Therefore I could provide more attention to students with special needs unlike at my former primary school”. (OS01 – Secondary school teacher)

Primary school teachers were often worried of whether their students with special needs were able to follow the lessons in their classrooms as many young students with special needs were too shy to speak up in class when in doubt. They had to constantly check with them to affirm their understanding of their lessons. Some of them complained that most of their teaching time had been wasted as they had to stop their lessons temporarily in order to contain some of their students’ disruptive behaviours. Their disruptive behaviours resulted in slowing down the teaching pace.

“When we first started out [teaching at the primary school], we tended to focus on containing [their] behaviours most of the time“. (PC01 – Primary school teacher)

Other teachers echoed this similar sentiment about containing their primary school students with behavioural problems. Unlike secondary school students, primary school students were more unrestrained in their behaviour and it required a lot of constant discipline and reminder to manage their behaviours:

“Half of my class has the behavioural problems and out of them, there are 1 or 2 students with special needs. Because of that, I suffered from exhaustion and collapsed from great stress. [There was one time] when I was admitted into the hospital…just because of exhaustion from dealing with those primary school students. I had a talk with a single father who had three sons. One of the boys was a gang leader and they sometimes fought with other gang groups. It affected my family life as I could not spend more time with my family. Other than affecting my family life, every child has different needs that demands different teaching style which can be challenging. The biggest challenge is when you put one autistic and one ADHD student in one class. One would go around in the classroom while the other would take other people’s things, disturbing their classmates. Sometimes, he would complain about class distractions for example noisy fan. I have to spend a lot of time on these children and it affected my teaching pace. If you want the class to be inclusive, you need to consider this student with special needs but what about the rest? Most of the time, we are focusing on the problem, managing the problem, solving and fixing the problem” (PC04 – Primary school teacher)

Few primary school teacher participants also shared that there seems to be a general trend that general teacher teachers especially primary school teachers prefer to have students with special needs to be withdrawn or “pulled out” from their classrooms for additional support.

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“Some of my colleagues prefer to withdraw some students with autism or ADHD as it makes their lives easier and less taxing. Many of them felt that it was stressful for them to meet their different needs. We also felt that we lacked of essential training to equip ourselves with skills and knowledge to provide inclusive instructions for all of them including students with special needs. Once we pulled them out and referred them to our allied educators, these students could have better and individualized attention from them. Once they begin to feel that they understand their lessons, they are able to follow the lesson in my regular classroom. Therefore, I feel that for primary school students, we must have a lot of support from our allied educators. If not without them, we would not have any confidence to manage them”. (CP03 – Primary school teacher) b) Conditions of students’ disabilities

Both secondary and primary schools teachers shared their concerns regarding the conditions of their students’ disabilities. Many secondary school teachers felt that many students with behavioural issues were more capable to manage their emotional and mental states as they got older.

One of the teachers (BH04) shared:

“So far I have been teaching at this [secondary] school and I noticed that students with ADHD are getting better as they grow older. It happens to most of ADHD children. They are improving to control their behaviour without having to depend on their medicines to calm them down”. (BH04 – Secondary school teacher)

Most of secondary school students had been already diagnosed during their primary school days and they learnt how to cope with their disabilities through various rehabilitation programmes and counselling sessions before. However, in primary schools, many students were not properly diagnosed and their disabilities often went undetected.

“In my former primary school, some students are not properly diagnosed but we suspected that they might have ADHD. Their obvious symptoms are that they don't follow the rules as their normal classmates as they often walked around in the classrooms. Over here [at secondary school], they are able to self-manage their behaviour even though their attention span could be quite short”. (BH04 – Secondary school teacher)

Other teachers also shared that most of primary school students had shorter attention spans and they could not concentrate well during the lessons. Some of them disrupted the class lessons with their behaviours and disturbed their classmates.

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“My primary 3 students can be quite distracted easily. Their attention varies with time. They are able to concentrate for first 4 hours but after 12pm, their mental wellness would decline and they would start to become more hyperactive especially the last 2 periods in which they created a lot of problem for us, teachers. First few hours, they are fine. That means during the school periods – 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30 and 1:30. For the first 4 hours, they are coping well but the last two hours, they began to create trouble in class. In order to solve the problem, their parents resort to medication to calm them down. If the child did not take their medicine, they could be easily agitated’. (PC04 – Primary school teacher) c) Parental involvement

Active parental involvement in their child’s education pathway plays an important role to ensure that their child receives good quality of education. However, many teachers raise some concerns about their challenges of working with their parents. They feedbacked that the parents of students with special needs were overprotective, unsupportive, unaware or in denial of their conditions (Tam et al., 2006). One secondary school teacher explained:

“Parents are more concerned about their child’s academic progress at primary schools but here at my secondary school, we feel that parents are not so concerned about their progress”. (OS01 – Secondary school teacher)

The majority of primary school teachers shared their negative feedback about some parents and they felt that they were stressed by their unreasonable demands or uncooperative attitudes towards their children with special needs. Therefore, it could explain their negative attitude towards the inclusion of students with special needs

“Some parents are very sensitive about their child’s diagnosis and we suspected that she might have dyslexia as she could not fully comprehend the long reading passage. We wanted to recommend to her that it could be better for her to be exempted from taking her mother tongue and to focus on her English. But her parents refused to let her exempted from taking her Chinese subject and they insisted that she must continue taking her Chinese examination. Now she is still struggling with all subjects and she keeps failing all her subjects. I feel that by forcing her to be included with the rest does not help her at all and affects her confidence so badly. I cannot do anything about it”. (CP04 – Primary school teacher) d) Limited in-service training opportunities at primary school levels

The majority of primary school teachers had limited opportunities to attend any special needs training programmes as compared to secondary school teachers. Although it is mandatory for all teachers to take their compulsory training modules on special needs education, many teachers

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especially secondary school teachers had more opportunities to attend in-service training while they were in the teaching service. According to the questionnaires returned by the respondents, it is found that fewer primary school teachers (19%) took special needs training programmes than secondary school teachers (30%) during their teaching services. Again, by looking at the interviewees’ profiles, it is found that it is consistent with the quantitative findings that more than half of primary school teachers did not attend any special needs training programmes during in-teaching service as compared to secondary school teacher counterparts (28%).

“I did not follow up with any special needs education training after I became a primary school teacher. It could be because I was not well-trained to handle those students with special needs. It makes it quite challenging to accept the idea about inclusion education and I don’t see the value of inclusive education as the child with special needs is not getting real benefit out of it. On top of that, not all primary school students could readily accept their classmates with special needs and we have to educate them on their conditions to help them understand why their classmates behaved like this. Some parents also complained to us about the students with special needs; they said that the students with special needs disturbed their children and they wanted us to manage the class properly. Sometimes, as you know, the child could get out of control and it is hard to manage the whole class, handling the child. We cannot do everything to ensure that the class is in a good hand”. (CP02 – Primary school teacher)

On the other hand, secondary school teachers were found to be more accepting of students with special needs due to better awareness of their conditions. According to Ministry of Education

(2015), 10% of primary in-service teachers and 20% of secondary in-service teachers were trained in special needs education and this could explain that more secondary school teachers were more knowledgeable about their special needs and were able to display more positive attitudes towards them.

“In my opinion, I think more teachers from secondary schools have better awareness about the special needs students than the primary school teachers. Many of us were asked to go for in-service training programmes on special needs. In the past, there was no proper structure and support for them. When I first started teaching them 10 years ago, I had no idea about special needs and I could not tell whether that person had any special needs. We simply labelled them as lazy or naughty if they did not do any homework or obey any instruction. However, after I had attended the special needs education course, it helped me to change my attitude towards them and I realised that we should not label them. Labelling them is a wrong thing. Instead of this, we should learn to respect them and find the way to accommodate their needs”. (BH02 – Secondary school teacher)

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Concerns about quality of trainings

Slightly more than half of the interviewees attended the special needs education trainings and they felt that special needs education training could help them to develop positive attitudes towards students with special needs. Although they wholly agreed that special needs education training helped to instill positive attitudes towards students with special needs, the interviews with those teachers who attended special needs education training actually felt otherwise. Some of them feedbacked that the trainings were not useful and practical and others shared that their heavy teaching workload made it challenging for them to attend courses. Three main themes are discussed below. a) Balance between theory and practice

Quite a number of teachers shared that the trainings that they took during their in-service and pre-service teaching years mainly focused on theoretical aspects rather than practical-oriented curriculum which could be the potential challenge for the teachers to be adequately prepared for the inclusive classrooms. Although the quantitative findings showed that teachers who received trainings in special needs education were more likely to display their positive attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs, it did not necessarily prove that the trainings that they received could help them to improve their attitudes towards the students with special needs. Many of them felt that what they had learnt from their trainings did not necessarily help them in preparing their inclusive classrooms. One of them shared:

“If you ask me, I feel that the teachers need to be more exposed to the diverse needs of students with special needs. It is not about the trainings as I feel that the trainings do not help them to solve this problem. It only covers the basic knowledge, not so much in depth information or specialized knowledge for us to know more about them. That is the challenge of how to balance between the theory and practice.” (OS02 – Received special needs education trainings) b) Time between course and teaching

Many participants who attended the special needs education training felt that their courses could be quite time-consuming and their heavy workload posed a challenge for them to take time off to attend their courses. Some participants commented that the training institution was located far away from their schools and it did not serve as an incentive for them to travel to the training

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institution. One of the participants shared:

“Whenever the teachers need to go for any course on special needs education, they have to take leave to attend their courses for certain period of time. There is only one institution that offers special needs education training and it was located far away from my school. I had to travel all the way to attend the course”. (BH04 – received special needs education training)

She explained that no one helped to cover her work and her school work piled up. She needed a lot of time to clear her work.

“So, if they attended the course, their work load would increase as no one would cover their work. Some teachers would go on 2 months’ training and no one would take over their work. They will have to complete their work like marking students’ homework after they have completed their training. It could be better to have in-house training course, rather than travelling all the way to the training centre and maybe one-day course on more practical information on special needs could be better for us. After the course, we could go back to our room to finish some administrative work. Many of us are reluctant to take our leave for such courses”. (BH04 – Received special needs education trainings)

Theme on challenges of including students with special needs in their regular classrooms

This section discusses how the Singaporean teachers shared their challenges of including students with special needs in their classrooms. Three main challenges based on their responses were identified and discussed below:

Academic issues

Many informants shared that the biggest challenge in including students with special needs in the regular school is the rigor of academic curriculum that even normal student would find it very stressful. Singapore is particularly well-known for its notoriously competitive school environment in which every student has to compete with one another to excel well in their academic studies. Various sub-themes are discussed below: a) School ranking still in existence

Although the Ministry of Education has been trying to reform the school curriculum so as to focus less on academic achievement, some schools still practise school or class ranking system to rank the students according to their academic abilities. Many school teachers feedbacked that many students with special needs were often behind their class and they were placed in the lowest ranked class in which they would receive more attention from teachers. However, these classes were often

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perceived to have negative association with school gangs, slow learners and school misfits.

“Usually most of the students with special needs are in the bottom two classes. In these classes, there are 26 pupils and 6 out of them are officially diagnosed with disabilities by the counsellors. The better students would be taught in the best classes by better teachers. Usually inexperienced teachers would teach those lower ranked classes and they are not positive towards them due to their negative perceptions associated with their disabilities e.g. they did not listen to you, they refused to do homework. they could not understand the simple mathematics problem sums. I used to teach that class before and it was one of my worst teaching experiences”. When asked further to explain why it turned out to be the worst experience for him, he went on to explain: “Because of that, I was admitted to the hospital due to the exhaustion of dealing with those students. After being discharged from the hospital, I always pray that I would not be affected by those kids. I think if we actually ranked students according to their academic abilities, this probably could affect their self-confidence and esteem in themselves. Probably if there is no school or class ranking and we don’t focus on academic results, I think inclusive education might be possible for them”. (PC04 – primary school teacher) b) Challenging school environment

Most of the participants felt that mainstream curriculum was perceived to be challenging for students with special needs especially those with low cognitive function. In Singapore, exam-oriented curriculum is the main feature of school education and students are expected to cover content-intensive curriculum within a short period of time. Many teachers felt that they had to rush through the school syllabus and they could not afford to slow down their teaching pace. One of them described:

“The curriculum is very content-intensive and it requires students to learn as many facts and formulae as possible. Sometimes, the content could be too overwhelming for some students with special needs as they need more time to regurgitate the difficult concepts. In the end, they could not catch up with the lessons”. (BH02 – Secondary school teacher)

Others also shared about frequent school examinations that could be stressful for students with special needs and it added to increasing volume of school work.

“We have a lot of examinations and it could be quite onerous on the students with special needs. After a few topics, there will be a test and we expected every student to prepare well for the tests. So it could be very stressful for students with special needs who need more time to understand the difficult concept and very often they could not do well in their tests. Repeated poor performances would affect their confidence. I think it could be better if they could have more support for their learning”. (PC03 – Primary school teacher)

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c) Special needs educators

The majority of the respondents felt that the special needs educators (in Singapore context, they are called allied educators) were indispensable to the special needs students’ learning. Special needs educators are usually well-trained and equipped with professional knowledge and skills to handle students with special needs. However, many teachers grouched that there were insufficient allied educators to help increasing students with special needs and some of them questioned the quality of allied educators’ teaching pedagogies.

“In our school we have 2 allied educators and we cannot expect them to be there for all students with special needs all the time. We have to learn to look out for any unusual behaviours or any sign of possible meltdown. It would be probably better if we try to increase the manpower so that more allied educators could be deployed to manage students with special needs. On our side, I think there is a need for some of us to go for special needs education course to learn how to teach students with different kinds of disabilities”. (OS01 – Secondary school teacher) d) Large class size and inadequate in-class resources

Most of the participants were concerned about the large class size and insufficient school resources that affected their inclusion opportunities. They felt that the current class size in Singapore was relatively large and it made it challenging for teachers to dedicate their attention to students with special needs. One of them described:

“If there are 40 students in my class including 1 student with special need, it means that I would be teaching 51 students as teaching 1 student with special need is equivalent to teaching 11 students. So how would you be able to handle the large class size with limited support?” (PC04 – Primary school teacher)

Teachers’ negative mindset

In order to ensure the success of inclusive education, teacher’s positive mindset and empathy must be present and they also need to collaborate effectively with other colleagues to identify effective solutions to help their children in their learning process. Some respondents felt that their colleagues did not have the right mindset towards students with special needs.

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“I think teachers’ perception towards students with special needs need to be changed. We have excellent infrastructure and resources but the mindsets towards teaching students with special needs need to be changed. Most of the teachers only focus on containing their behaviour, expecting them to follow the rules. I think it is not effective to help them as they would not be benefited from teachers who only focus on containing their behaviours. They need to be understanding towards them and put themselves in their shoes. I think the child with special needs is aware of his/her problems and he/she is also trying his/her best to manage his/her behaviours. Therefore, I believe that if you know what the child needs, it would help to improve their self-confidence and relationship between teachers and students. So teachers need to change their mindset and make it an effort to facilitate the relationship with each other”. (PC01 – Primary school teacher)

Acceptance among peers

Another main concern voiced by the informants was the acceptance level among their peers.

They recognised the importance of inclusive education as a tool to encourage greater interaction and level of understanding between two different groups; non-disabled students could display their empathy towards their classmates with special needs and some of them were willing to help their classmates when they had any problem with their work. However, the informants shared that the level of awareness among their peers remained low as many of them could not readily accept their classmates with special needs. One of the informants shared:

“Some students do not like him and they think that he is queer. He has some communication issues and awkward behaviour. He does not behave like a normal person. You can tell from his behaviour and when you see his behaviour, you may think that he may be mad or something else. He may look normal but his behaviour is not normal. As for his communication, he does not communicate at the same level as other classmates. For example, he likes to talk about certain themes that other classmates may not like or are not interested. So the classmates would tell him, “can you stop talking about it?”” (BH03 – Secondary school teacher)

To sum up all these challenges faced by the interviews, on the whole Singaporean teachers felt that the local cultural context of competitive school environment was the most challenging to include students with special needs. Students with special needs required a lot of time and support in order to manage their studies. Often time, some teachers mentioned the lack of in-class support – allied educators – and they assumed greater roles in supporting students with special needs. Some teachers had their negative perception towards students with special needs especially when they were ranked in low ranked classes. They mentioned that some of their classmates could not accept their disabled peers readily due to their lack of understanding and awareness of their disabilities.

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Theme on strategies to address challenges

The informants offered various strategies to address their challenges that they faced in carrying out their inclusive class practices through various strategies. Interviews with teachers indicated that creation of a nurturing community space of teachers, better usage of resource support and modification of teaching approach were the most commonly used strategies to ensure that students with special needs could be effectively included in their regular classrooms. The theme of coping strategies is divided into three subthemes and this is discussed below.

Modification of teaching pedagogies

Most of the respondents shared their strategies of how to provide inclusive class instructions to include them fully in the classroom learning. Depending on the type and severity of the child’s disability, teachers modified their teaching pedagogies. For example, some participants shared that in the case of student with hearing impairment, teachers would normally sit them in front of the classroom so that they would be able to hear better with their hearing-aided devices. They also had to be mindful that the students with hearing impairment needed to lip-read their teachers so they had to make sure that when they were writing on the blackboard, they must make their lips visible to their students. As for the students with autism, teachers made them to colour-code the homework.

“I provide various kinds of strategies for students with special needs. I also provide pull-out support for them. For example, I have students with dyslexia who are very weak in their spellings. For a start we will provide 10 new words and if they feel that they could not remember how to spell 10 new words, I will cut down the number of words maybe down to 3 new words and I will teach them how to spell based on the pronunciation which is called syllabication. For example the word “broom” should be broken down into br + oo + m when he tries to pronounce the word. When they progress to learn more new words, I will give them more difficult words. That is how I provide certain support for the child with special needs”. (CP04 – Primary school teacher)

Nurturing community space of teachers

Some respondents felt that there should be a platform for teachers to share their best practices of teaching students with special needs and allow them to explore alternative solutions to this inclusion problem. They agreed that teamwork and open communication among their colleagues were essential to share information and strategies. One participant shared:

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“I think it is very important to share information about students with special needs and we need to pre-empt each other so that we could be better prepared for them for example students with behavioural problems. We also need to involve our support teachers or allied educators in our focus-group discussion to brainstorm various teaching strategies. It helps to share the responsibility among ourselves and we would be in a better position to manage and help our students better as a group”. (BH04 – Secondary school teacher)

Resource support

The participants shared that they had devised a lot of resource support strategies for their students. Some of them shared that the class size had to be kept smaller so that they could dedicate more attention to students with special needs. Others suggested that there should be a better linkage of training course and practical teaching pedagogies. Many of them shared that the training materials were not sufficient and the content needed to be further improved with real-life case studies. Other suggestions included awareness-raising programmes on inclusive education and students with special needs, better installation of infrastructures e.g. sound proofing walls to reduce the distractions, provision of more support teachers e.g. allied educators and stronger leadership from the management level to ensure that the resources and funding are well in place.

“At this moment the class size is big and it is hard for us to manage students with special needs. The class duration is very tight and we have classes back to back. Right after this class, we have to teach other class so it leaves very little opportunity for us to spend time with students with special needs. As mentioned earlier, we cannot afford to slow down our teaching pace as we have to ensure that we are able to complete school syllabus before their examinations. In this sense, I believe that with the smaller class size at least 1 student with special needs in 1 class could be much more beneficial for them”. (OS03 – Secondary school teacher)

Summing up, interview participants had tried their best to identify different kinds of strategies to help students with special needs cope well with their lessons in the regular classrooms.

They also felt that with the presence of adequate resources, in-class support and modification of teaching instructions including smaller class could be helpful for them to address various challenges to include them

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SUMMARY

This chapter presented the qualitative findings through the semi-structured interviews with selected teachers who were currently teaching at primary and secondary mainstream schools during the 2016 academic year. This analysis of qualitative data further expands on the results of quantitative research with greater clarity to why and how certain variables affected their attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in their mainstream schools. Apart from it, additional findings on their challenges and coping strategies to create more inclusive environment for their students with special needs are also discussed. For such study to be carried out, thematic analysis is utilised to identify the emerging themes arising from their responses to the interview questions. Short summary of results arising from two case studies is discussed below:

Japan case study

In respect to the quantitative results, it is found that Japanese teacher whose experience in teaching students with special needs tend to have higher sense of efficacy than those without any experience with special needs students. Most of the informants cited their mastery and vicarious experiences as the main reasons for their high sense of efficacy. These reasons are well-supported by the Bandura (1980)’s Theory of Self-Efficacy that identifies few important sources that influence people’s self-belief involving their efficacy. It includes mastery experiences and vicarious experiences. As discussed in the literature review (Chapter 2), those teachers who experienced their success in overcoming their challenges to teach students with special needs tend to have more perseverance in achieving similar tasks of working with students with special needs. The most interesting finding reveals that the school leaders of the school would have the least experience in teaching students with special needs and this explains that they are not confident to teach or manage students with special needs. Secondly, vicarious experience could help to improve their teaching-efficacy by observing the successful teachers who succeeded in working with their disabled students. Apart from their teaching-efficacy towards their children, many teachers who have their disabled family members or relatives are more positive in their attitudes towards their disabled

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students than those without any disabled family members or relatives. They found that it was easier for them to develop their inclusion of philosophy, understand the value of supports and to appreciate the value of empathy towards their lesser privileged members.

Japanese teachers also shared about their challenges and strategies on how they could address the challenges to involve their children with special needs fully in their classrooms. They shared that these various issues e.g. academic concerns, negative perception towards disabled students, school bullying and lack of special needs education training were their main stumbling blocks to their implementation of inclusive class practices. Academic issues-wise, many teachers felt that large class size and lack of manpower and support for their needs were the main reasons for the academic issues. In order to work around these various challenges, many teachers felt that it was necessary to obtain more resource support in terms of better skills labour, better infrastructure and enhancing teachers’ teaching competence. They also believed that they needed to strengthen their collaboration with their disabled students’ parents to get them more involved in their learning journey.

Singapore case study

Based on the quantitative findings, Singaporean male teachers have higher sense of teaching efficacy than their female counterparts which are found to be contradictory to many previous studies. Based on the interviews with male and female teachers, many teachers shared that their gender disparity were attributed to different teaching stress threshold and female teachers were easily stressed from their students’ misbehaviours which could be trivial or extreme. Male teachers could be advantageous to handle physically aggressive students due to their physical traits as they were perceived to be physically stronger to handle their violent students who could resort to their dangerous acts. Female teachers are easily more embroiled in the conflict between their work and family roles as they are expected to fulfil their maternity responsibility towards their family at home.

Moreover, in Singapore, there remain gender gaps due to the social and cultural context in Singapore and it may explain the female teachers’ lower sense of teaching-efficacy. Secondly, secondary school teachers are found to more positive attitudes towards students with special needs than primary school teachers. Again, this finding is found to contradict with many previous studies. The class size in the

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primary school is much smaller than the secondary school and primary school students are more unrestrained in their behaviours. Secondary school students are able to manage their emotional and behaviours better as they get older and it probably makes things easier for the secondary school teachers as many secondary school teachers claimed to be. The finding also shows that the majority of primary school teachers did not receive as many special needs education training as the secondary school teachers. Thus, primary school teachers have their lower sense of teaching-efficacy as many of them are not well-trained in the area of special needs education.

In terms of training, it is found that Singaporean teachers who received trainings in special needs education are found to be more positive towards students with special needs. However, in reality, this finding seems not to be fully supported by the qualitative findings. Many teachers felt that the trainings they received did not effectively help them in improving their inclusive class practices as they felt that the courses overemphasized on the theory instead of real-life practice.

Besides that, many teachers are very much overburdened with their teaching responsibilities and they feel that attending any training course at only one training institution does not offer them any real incentive. Moreover, attending training course would require them to take leave from their teaching jobs and there is no one who could help to take over their teaching jobs.

Singaporean teachers also shared about their challenges of including students with special needs. Many of them were concerned about the inclusion of students with special needs as they felt that Singapore stressful education system coupled with society’s obsession with academic results could be challenging to include students with special needs in the regular schools. They also shared that inadequate knowledge about the students with special needs and poor quality of teacher trainings posed their challenges to improve their service delivery to their disabled students. To address their challenges, teachers identified ways to modify their teaching pedagogies and to collaborate with other teachers to create a community space for teachers for sharing of best class practices. They also emphasized the need for better resource support through reducing the class size, piloting better awareness-raising programmes and improvement of physical infrastructure to better meet the needs of students with special needs.

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CHAPTER 8. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

8.1 REVISIT RESEARCH OBJECTIVE, RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY

This chapter aims to summarize the findings from the quantitative and qualitative researches and to highlight the major findings that I am interested to bring to the readers’ attention.

Further, my reflections on the selected major findings will make the important references to the theories and the previous literature studies that I have found. The results from this research could further contribute to the accumulation of knowledge and understandings about the teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream schools in the Asian developed countries context. The policy and practical implications from this research are made explicit. Research recommendations and research limitations based on the findings to highlight the relationship between the findings and recommendations are discussed before ending with my concluding remarks

The key research questions intend to replicate and extend the previous studies by stringing together the key discussion points of the quantitative and qualitative findings of the two country case studies that investigated the impact of teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy on the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools. It also investigates the relationships between their attitudes, teaching-efficacy and various factors (child-related, teacher-related and environment-related factors) towards the inclusive education in two different country case studies.

On top of these variables findings, teachers are asked to share their thoughts about their problems and strategies to better include students with their special needs in their regular classrooms.

This study was conducted at mainstream schools in Singapore and Japan among primary and secondary school teachers. A mixed-method research was performed using an explanatory sequential methods of using quantitative research first and then qualitative research. The quantitative research solicited data through questionnaires from 189 Japanese and 183 Singaporean teachers; the subsequent qualitative research interviewed 38 Japanese and 15 Singaporean mainstream teachers.

While Forlin et al., (2011) deployed their SACIE-R instruments to investigate teachers’ overall attitudes towards students with special needs. Sharma et al., (2011) employed the TEIP scales to

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION measure the teachers’ perceived specific teaching-efficacy in collaboration, managing disruptive behaviours and using inclusive instructions. As mentioned in my literature review chapter,

Savolainen et al., (2012) used two scales to investigate the teachers’ attitudes and perceived teaching-efficacy in South Africa and Finland. Aside from it, semi-structured interviews were conducted in their mainstream school settings and all teacher participants were selected randomly from the larger sample pool who has already participated in their questionnaires. Interviews focused on their school experiences with students with special needs and discussed on the selected findings from quantitative research. In this way, semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions allow the room of flexibility to facilitate deeper understanding of the particular issue.

The following discussion in the next section focuses on empirical and narrative findings about in-service regular teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in their mainstream schools in Japan and Singapore. All the four key research questions, which have been discussed in the Chapter 2, are revisited and all the findings including theories and references to the previous studies are discussed together. The research questions are presented in the narrative form.

In this particular study, four major questions have been raised concerning Japanese and

Singaporean in-service teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream schools. First of all, we need to understand how the teachers in this study rated themselves whether they were confident to teach and manage students with special needs.

In this case, there is a need to conduct the questionnaire to evaluate their level of teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards students with special needs. Questions are carefully devised to assess their strengths in their overall teaching-efficacy and attitudes. Next, we want to know what the key factors affect their outcome of teaching-efficacy and attitudes and why these particular factors only influence their teaching-efficacy and attitudes. This requires the interview to un-mystify these significant factors that affect them.

Third question is to validate the assumption that teachers having strong sense of teaching-efficacy will display their positive attitudes towards students with special needs. This

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION requires assessing the strength of the relationship between teaching-efficacy and attitudes. We are also interested to find out which type of teaching efficacy would help teachers to improve their attitudes towards students with special needs. This requires correlation and regression tests to answer this question.

Last, the fourth question asks the broader view of how teachers actually define the meaning of inclusive education in their local contexts. We need to understand why teachers encounter various kinds of problems of including students with special needs. What are the major issues that teachers are very concerned about students with special needs? At the same time it is essential for us to know how teachers identify solutions to address these challenges to better include students with special needs in their mainstream classrooms.

8.2 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

This section presents the discussions based on the findings from Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 including the literature reviews and background case studies in Japan and Singapore. Empirical and narrative results are summarized with the references to the previous studies.

8.2.1 Factors associated with teachers’ teaching-efficacy

Results from the TEIP scale questionnaires answered by Japanese teachers indicated that they had slightly above average sense of teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs. By comparing against the international research on teaching-efficacy, it was found to be rated quite poorly against other countries e.g. Finland and South Africa (Savolainen et al., 2012) and Bangladesh (Tasnuba & Tsokova, 2015). Another finding compared that Korean general education teachers had higher teaching-efficacy than Japanese general teachers despite the closeness in their cultural proximity (Song, 2016). This study is found to be consistent with Yoshitoshi

(2014)’s Japanese research paper which noted that Japanese high school teachers had low sense of perceived teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classrooms. At the same time, separate finding surfaced by a research think-tank, Kokuritsu Kyoiku

Seisaku Kenkyujo (2014) also corroborated that Japanese teachers had a lower self-efficacy towards

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION students with special needs. These authors highlighted the plausible reasons behind the low teaching-efficacy that might explain that there was a high societal expectation that demanded

Japanese teachers to practise their humility socially and culturally in answering the questions. In this case, they might have underrated themselves in answering the questionnaire or interview questions.

Further, through my interview with the Japanese teachers, I raised a question about how they thought they were successful in managing and teaching students with special needs. From my observation, I found that almost 90% of interviewees did not agree that they were successful in managing them and directed their self-criticism at themselves for not doing enough for their students. Japanese often restrain from dispensing their personal compliments for their accomplishments as it is a cultural norm to downplay their successful results. When I tried to paraphrase my interview question to ask if they could think of one example to highlight how they helped with their students with special needs to do better in their studies, many of them were able to provide meaningful examples. Therefore, in answering the questionnaires, caution has to be exercised that Japanese respondents tend to underestimate themselves when they are asked to rate their abilities in managing their classrooms and dealing with students with special needs, thus influencing the accuracy of the results.

The TEIP results showed that Singaporean teachers had quite high sense of teaching-efficacy towards the inclusion of students with special needs. This result put Singapore on the almost same par as Finnish and South African teachers (Savolainen et al., 2012). This finding was also found to be consistent with the international finding that was published in TALIS (2013).

Both countries showed the similar results; teachers’ perceived teaching-efficacy became higher when they had good knowledge about disability policies and legislations about inclusive education. It became lower when both groups of teachers displayed little or no knowledge about the disability policies/legislations. Other studies proved that with the sufficient amount of knowledge of inclusive education policies and legislation, regular teachers were able to display high sense of teaching-efficacy e.g. Bangladeshi (Ahsan, Sharma, & Deppeler, 2012) and Pakistani studies

(Sharma, Shaukat, & Furlonger, 2015). Their studies acknowledged that if their knowledge pertaining to the inclusive education policies/legislation increased, they would show higher sense of

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION perceived teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education. In addition to it, the United States study confirmed that sufficient amount of knowledge of inclusion terminology and policies could improve their self-confidence in teaching students with special needs and therefore, that finding supported the incorporation of information on local legislation and policies in their teacher education curriculum

(Brown, Welsh, Hill, & Cipko, 2008).

However, there were some differences in the perceived teaching-efficacy profiles of teachers in two countries; in Japan, the only main factor that significantly influenced their teaching-efficacy was their prior experiences in teaching students with special needs while in Singapore, and gender significantly influenced their teaching-efficacy. In the Japanese case study, as was reasonably expected, teachers who had relevant teaching experiences with students with special needs displayed higher sense of teaching-efficacy than those with little or no teaching experience with them. This result was supported by the interview findings which many teachers cited that they have accumulated their mastery and vicarious experiences over the years. Many Japanese teachers were able to handle their students with special needs better through their trial-and-error methods and it helped to improve their wealth of mastery experiences. Secondly, experienced teachers availed themselves to more opportunities to observe their colleagues to improve on their teaching dynamics and they were very much forthcoming to develop their close rapports with their colleagues. In this way, it facilitated the cross-fertilization of best classroom practices concerning the inclusion of students with special needs among the experienced teachers. These results were confirmed by the several studies conducted by (D’Alonzo, Giordano, & Vanleeuwen, 2014; Everhart, 2009) that those teachers with little or no experience often felt ill-prepared to meet the diverse needs of students with special needs, thereby increasing their sense of anxiety and fear of teaching students with special needs. Several researchers found that those teachers with limited classroom experiences could not develop their deep conceptual understanding of the teaching nuances and classroom challenges that the multidimensionality of classroom presented and the onerous demands placed on them to meet the needs of students with special needs (Hoy & Spero, 2005). Aside from it, the most important finding from this study revealed an unexpected result that many teachers with little or no experience with

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION students were usually in the leadership positions that did not require them to teach or interact with students with special needs frequently. Although there were few previous studies that attempted to investigate the school leaders’ teaching-efficacy, there were no studies that found the relationship between the degree of experience with students with special needs and their leadership positions.

Another contradictory finding from Singapore case study indicated that male teachers were likely to have greater sense of perceived teaching-efficacy than their female counterparts. This was corroborated by previous studies conducted in Saudi Arabia (Al-Ahmadi, 2009; Alquraini, 2012) and

Bangladesh (Ahsan et al., 2013).

In summing up, Japanese teachers’ sense of teaching-efficacy was very much influenced by their teaching experiences with students with special needs and there is a need to further discuss on the leadership vs teaching role in respect to teaching experience. At the same time, Singaporean teachers’ teaching-efficacy was affected by gender issues.

8.2.2 Factors associated with teachers’ attitudes The analysis of questionnaire data indicated that the overall attitudes held by Japanese and

Singaporean in-service teachers were relatively neutral towards the inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools. This findings were consistent with the similar studies conducted in

Japan (Yada, 2015), and Finland, China and South Africa (Savolainen et al., 2012) which all these country case studies found that teachers from these countries did not openly support or reject the idea of inclusion of students with special needs in their regular schools. These findings were also supported by the previous separate findings in Japan and Singapore. According to Ueno and

Nakamura (2011), they found that even though Japanese teachers were equally supportive of the idea of inclusive education, they still felt anxious and concerned about including them and meeting their educational needs. Similarly, many Singaporean teachers were particularly concerned that they were not equipped with right knowledge and skills to identify and include them (Tam et al., 2006).

Further investigation from the questionnaires data revealed that there were certain important factors that influenced Japanese and Singaporean teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs in their regular schools. Teachers with higher levels of confidence to

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION teach students with special needs displayed more positive attitudes towards inclusion of their disabled students in their regular classrooms. Similarly, if they did not have any confidence in teaching students with special needs, their attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs would be negative. According to Sigafoos and Elkins (1994), they concluded that mainstream educators were generally less confident to include students with special needs due to their lack of proficiency in modifying their teaching pedagogies to meet their needs. On the other hands,

Avramidis, Bayliss and Burden (2000), and Briggs, Johnson, Shepherd and Sedbrook (2002) indicated that those teachers who perceived themselves as reliable and competent inclusive teachers often showed their positive attitudes towards inclusive education.

In Japan, those teachers with their disabled family members displayed more positive attitudes towards the inclusive education than those without any disabled family members. Many previous studies supported that teachers with family members with disabilities held better awareness of better support for their students with special needs than those teachers without any such family members

(Forlin et al., 2009; Gal, Schreur, & Engel-Yeger, 2010; Subban & Sharma, 2006). Some studies, however reported that having a family member with a disability had no significant relationship with their perspectives towards the inclusion of students with disabilities (Al-Ahmadi, 2009; Alghazo et al., 2003; Parasuram, 2006). The interview findings with the Japanese in-service teachers revealed that those teachers with their disabled family members or relatives were more likely to develop their inclusion philosophy and appreciated the value of empathy towards their lesser privileged members of society.

In Singapore, there are two significant findings regarding the teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs. If teachers were teaching in secondary schools in

Singapore, they were more likely to adopt more positive attitudes towards the students with special needs than their primary school counterparts. And Singaporean teachers who received their trainings in special needs education training or inclusive education, be it any kind of trainings – in-service or pre-service trainings, they would hold more positive attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special needs than those teachers who did not attend any training. Beh‐Pajooh (1992) and

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Shimman (1990) stressed the importance of training in the creation of teachers’ positive attitudes towards inclusion through their investigation with their teacher participants in UK. In their UK studies, teachers were adequately trained to understand the needs of their students with special needs and they were found to express more positive and favourable reactions to their students than did those who did not receive any formal training. Similarly, inadequate relevant training pertaining to inclusive education would lower their level of teacher confidence (Schumm, Vaughn, Gordon, &

Rothlein, 1994; Whitworth, 1991) and it resulted in their negative attitudes towards them as they perceived themselves as ill-prepared for inclusive education (Bender et al., 1995; Daane,

Beirne-Smith, & Latham, 2000).

8.2.3 Relationship between teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy:

The third question is to identify whether the perceived teaching-efficacy for inclusive practices correlates with their attitudes towards inclusive education. Based on these two country case studies, both findings showed the significant positive correlation of teaching-efficacy on their attitudes. This positive correlation between the teacher’s teaching-efficacy and attitude towards inclusion of students with special needs in the regular schools is supported by earlier studies which demonstrate that teaching-efficacy beliefs are related to their attitudes in various countries e.g. Israel

(Amog & Shechtman, 2007), Beijing, Finland and South Africa (Malinen et al., 2012), Bangladesh

(Tasnuba & Tsokova, 2015) and other countries (Meijer & Foster, 1988; Soodak et al., 1998; Weisel

& Dror, 2006). Savolainen et al., (2012) suggested that the higher sense of teaching-efficacy the teachers upheld towards their inclusive practices in their regular classrooms, the more positive their attitudes towards the inclusive education and students with special needs they would be likely to adopt. Based on these findings, if we want to encourage teachers to adopt their positive attitudes and greater acceptance towards students with special needs, we must start with their teaching-efficacy.

That should be the starting point that we should look into ways of how we can improve their sense of teaching-efficacy that would translate into positive attitudes towards their students with special needs. This is supported by Theory of Planned Behaviour and Theory of Efficacy discussed in

Chapter 2. In order to identify which type of teaching-efficacy would best improve their attitudes

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION towards students with special needs, regression test was carried out to identify which type of teaching-efficacy best predicted the teacher’s attitudes. From these results, Japanese needed to work on improving their teaching efficacy in using inclusive instructions and Singaporean teachers were required to collaborate with their colleagues, experts and parents if they wanted to adopt their positive attitudes towards students with special needs.

8.3 MAJOR DISCUSSION POINTS

This section intends to bring all the major findings that I have found from my literature reviews, background study of two countries – Japan and Singapore, quantitative and qualitative researches for the future possible research follow-ups. The key issues are: (1) leadership vs teaching role; (2) grade level; (3) gender; and (4) challenges and strategies towards inclusive education.

8.3.1 Key issue 1: Leadership vs teaching role

School leaders are solely responsible to ensure that their schools are conducive for learning and social interaction. Also, schools have to be inclusive for everyone regardless of types and severity of disabilities. They have to ensure that the members of school community practise their respect for students with diverse needs and they are duly bound to encourage all of them, including the parents and policy makers to collaborate and share their best practices. In this way, students with special needs could have better learning opportunities. They assume wide range of roles ranging from visionary leaders, business manager, problem solver, disciplinarian and community liaison leader (Sage & Burello, 1994). Based on the interview data with Japanese teachers, it was found that teachers with little or no experience working with students with special needs usually held their leadership positions that did not require them to interact with students with special needs. Further investigation revealed that many of them did not formally come into encounter with any students with special needs when they used to be teachers. They cited their reasons that in the past, the awareness about the disability among students was very low and there was no formal training that could help them to identify students with special needs and to provide some knowledge of how to deal with students with special needs. Some of them claimed that they had limited or nil

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION understanding of less obvious type of disability for example, ADHD which referred to the students with short attention spans and also suffered from low self-esteem. Such children were often labelled as ‘lazy’, ‘naughty’ or ‘rebellious’ and they were harshly dealt with no support provided for their needs. Many parents often hid their child with special needs from the public eyes as person with disability was often negatively stereotyped. There was hardly any awareness about persons with disability and therefore, many principals shared that many of their former students often came to schools undiagnosed without any proper treatment. Most previous studies noted that school leaders were not sufficiently prepared to address the diverse needs of students with special needs or those who were having difficulty in coping with their school lives (Pazey & Yates, 2012). Lack of knowledge regarding the disability and special education was the main culprit behind their low teaching-efficacy towards students with special needs. Angelle and Bilton (2009) discovered that more than half of the principals did not take any course on special needs education trainings. The topics on disability and special education did not generate much attention and interest from the principals and most of the course materials mainly focused on the legal aspects, not the practical aspects of inclusive education. DiPaola and Walther-Thomas (2003; pg. 11) made their sharp observation that “most principals lack the course work and field experience needed to lead local efforts to create learning environments that emphasize academic success for students with disabilities”. Despite the recent increased awareness about the special education among the school leaders, the leadership regarding the inclusive education and students with special needs did not reveal any positive changes in their efficacy towards students with special needs (Angelle & Bilton,

2009; Pazey & Yates, 2012). Moreover, there was limited research on how the school leaders approached their leadership to tackle the inclusion issue.

According to Bandura’s (1986) Theory of Efficacy, necessary ingredients e.g. adequate knowledge about special education, competence and self-belief were necessary to bring about desired actions. If the requisite knowledge and skills about students with special needs were not present, no amount of teaching-efficacy could be sufficient to help them to perform their positive behaviour towards them (Pajares, 2003). However, this present study only focuses on

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION teaching-efficacy which may be irrelevant for the principals and the teaching-efficacy questionnaires should be redesigned to capture different forms of efficacy that the school leaders should have, for instance, efficacy in working with parents or policy makers, efficacy in motivating teachers.

8.3.2 Key issue 2: Gender issue

It was well documented that the female teachers were found to have greater tolerance level for integration and more compassion and understanding for students with special needs than did their male colleagues (Aksamit, Morris, & Leunberger, 1987; Eichinger, Rizzo, & Sirotnik, 1991; Forlin et al., 2009; Romi & Leyser, 2006; Thomas, 1985). There are also other studies that do not prove any significant relationship between the participants’ gender and their teaching-efficacy towards the inclusive education (Carroll, Forlin, & Jobling, 2003; Faridah & Mundia, 2012). Based on the findings, I found that in the context of Singapore, the reasons for the gender disparity concerning their teaching efficacy for inclusive class practices explained that both genders had different stress threshold while dealing with students with special needs. Female teachers reported that they were easily stressed from their students’ misbehavior be it trivial or extreme and they were not able to handle certain students with extreme behavioural problems. Male teachers were perceived to be advantageous in their physical traits as they were able to handle physically aggressive students with special needs. Secondly female teachers expressed that they were embroiled in the conflict juggling between their work and family roles as they were expected to fulfil their maternity responsibility towards their family at home. There was an unspoken social norm that demanded women in

Singapore to perform the multiple roles of wives, mothers and employees. Work family conflict inevitably occurred when the women could not effectively cope with these multiple roles and the result was found to affect work performance and family well-being (Greenhaus, Collins, & Shaw,

2003). Research showed that although everyone often experienced the work family conflict, women were found to be the primary receiver of work family conflict (Ansari, 2011; Nurmayanti, Thoyib,

Noermijati, & Irawanto, 2014). Moreover, the teaching job was found to be internationally recognized as one of the most stressful professions (Hakanen, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2006; Prieto,

Soria, Martínez, & Schaufeli, 2008) and the heavy teaching workload made it challenging for them

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION to find time to plan their work that required them to increase students’ knowledge and to be responsible for social and emotional development of students (Peeters & Rutte, 2005). Therefore female teachers often experienced teaching-related fatigue that could affect their teaching-efficacy towards students with special needs. Male teachers tended to regard students’ misbehaviours as less problematic and treated those behaviours as part of the growing-up phase as mentioned by one of the male interviewees. Lastly, the most important finding found that the social and cultural context in

Singapore could have contributed to the gender bias that might affect the teaching-efficacy.

Singapore is a male-centric society which gender disparity between male and female Singaporeans remains existent till now and this may explain the finding regarding the female teachers’ lower perceived teaching-efficacy. The interview findings with the female teachers found that male

Singaporean teachers, in general, were perceived to receive better opportunities in their careers that could help them to increase their teaching-efficacy to undertake challenges in their jobs.

8.3.3 Key issue 3: Educational levels

This finding yielded that secondary school teachers showed more positive attitudes towards students with special needs than their primary school counterparts and this happened particularly in

Singapore context. This result is found to be contradictory with many previous studies that reported that primary school teachers were more supportive of inclusion of students with special needs than the secondary school teachers (Connor, Bickens, & Bittman, 2009; Cook, 2004; Kozik, Cooney,

Vinciguerra, Gradel, & Black, 2009; Stockall & Gartin, 2002). According to most studies (Connor et al., 2009; Cook, 2004; Kozik et al., 2009; Stockall & Gartin, 2002), teachers who taught in the primary school settings were more student-oriented and they were more willing to invest their time and effort to manage their students’ behaviours and academic engagement. Primary school students were usually instructed on how to develop their learning strategies rather than being expected to learn what content they had to learn. This kind of strategic teaching/teaching pedagogy is widely adopted at the primary school level as compared to secondary schools which adopt content-driven teaching pedagogy. On the other hand, Ahsan, Deppeler and Sharma (2013) conducted their studies on Bangladeshi pre-service teachers’ attitudes and perceived teaching-efficacy for inclusive

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION education and they found that secondary school teachers had higher sense of perceived teaching-efficacy than their primary school counterparts. The secondary-level and primary-level curriculums were found to be different as only secondary-level curriculums had been recently revised to address the issue concerning inclusive education. Another reason explained that

Bangladeshi governments provided more support through government orientation programme –

Teaching Quality Improvement Project (TQI) – to better train secondary school teachers than primary school teachers. This, thus, helped Bangladeshi secondary school teachers to develop better sense of teaching-efficacy for their inclusive class practice. However in Singapore, based on the local contextual findings, the class size at the primary school level was much bigger than that at secondary school levels and the primary school students were more unrestrained in their behaviours, making it more challenging for primary school teachers to manage them. The interviewees shared that the class size at the primary level averaged around 35 – 40 students unlike the secondary school class size was smaller, averaging around 25 – 30 students. Other secondary school teachers shared that secondary school students were more matured and they could manage their emotional and behavioural states relatively better than the primary school students.

8.3.4 Key issue 4: Challenges and strategies concerning inclusive education

The last question approaches this problem at the macro-level view which investigates what kind of challenges Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers faced when dealing with their students with special needs in their regular classrooms and how they adopt their strategies to address their challenges. Overall analysis of the responses from Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers revealed two different directions in terms of their attitudes towards the implementation of inclusive education at their schools; the majority of Japanese in-service teachers described their ambivalence or negative concerns that it was challenging to implement the inclusive class practices in their classrooms while most Singaporean respondents acknowledged that though implementation of inclusive class practices could be potentially challenging, they felt that it was out of necessity to introduce inclusive class practices at the school levels. Evidently, in both phases of researches conducted in Japan and Singapore, it clearly indicated that there exists a conflict of interest between

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION the contents of policies and actual realities in schools including teachers’ personal thoughts and concerns about their students with their special needs. Inclusive education policies are meant to ensure that everyone would be accorded equal opportunities to quality education regardless of level of functionality or any personal characteristics associated with them e.g. disabilities.

This finding from Japanese case study was supported by Sato and Hodge (2009) and Forlin,

Kawai and Higuchi (2015) who found that many Japanese teachers were in disagreement or in slight agreement that students with special needs should be included in their lessons. They further found that “no teacher was in full support of integrated classes” (Sato and Hodge, 2009; pg. 172) given that they felt that they were overwhelmed by various difficulties, complexities and concerns about inclusion of students with special needs. Forlin, Kawai and Higuchi (2015) confirmed that many teachers in Japan had a very low understanding of inclusion and they found that many teachers lacked of perceived skills, knowledge, experience or training for their inclusive class practices.

In Singapore, according to Yeo, Neihart, Tang, Chong and Huan (2011), their findings suggested that the reasons for their openness and optimism towards inclusion came from their

“can-do” attitude of the stakeholders to improve the outcomes for the students with special needs at the mainstream schools. It could be due to the common belief held by Singaporeans that Singapore was governed by the principle of meritocracy and racial harmony. Therefore, with the open attitude towards diversity, Singaporean teachers were more likely to adopt this similar pragmatic attitude towards diverse learners at schools.

One of the major challenges facing my informants was that the existing academic challenges at school that posed the potential impediment to the development of inclusive education. Most of the informants shared that lack of resources and qualified manpower including special needs educators and large class sizes were the main causes of their concerns towards the inclusion of students with special needs. According to Forlin, Keen and Barrett (2008), most general education teachers had their concerns about the implementation of inclusive class practices and their greatest concern was related to the minutiae of everyday classroom poor practices which were the result of mismanagement of large class sizes and insufficiency of material and manpower resources. Secondly,

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Sharma et al., (2006) also found that in order to successfully include atypical students, teachers must be well-equipped with professional knowledge to identify children’s capabilities and to effectively teach both students with and without special needs alike. In addition, my informants shared their grouses about the teacher education training that failed to discuss practical content related to inclusive education. As the result, many teachers felt inadequate to handle the students with special needs competently with useless or obsolete knowledge. Since Japan and Singapore are newcomers to inclusive education, the linkage between content knowledge and actual teaching pedagogy is very much lacking in their training programmes. There are limited content-based teaching-learning approaches and inclusive education-related information in the teacher education curriculum and this made it challenging for them to adopt their differentiated teaching approaches. Those approaches are found not to be consistent with Vygotsky’s social constructivist teaching approaches (Fosnot, 1996;

Steffe & Gale, 1995) that emphasize redesigning and reforming teacher education curricula to meet the challenges of inclusive education (Booth, Nes, & Strømstad, 2003; Jangira, 1995). In Japan, different teaching certificate is required depending on the educational level at which teachers want to teach and if teachers intend to teach students with special needs, they must acquire both regular teaching certificate at educational level at which they want to teach and special education teaching certificate. Because of that, many Japanese regular teachers are not adequately prepared to deal with students with special needs as they are not required to take any course on special needs education.

On the other hand, all Singaporean beginning teachers are required to attend a 12-hour module on the special needs that equip them with basic understanding of students with special needs. It does not provide any in-depth practicum experiences that utilise diagnostic and prescriptive teaching application to students with special needs. Based on these reasons, as was reasonably expected,

Singaporean and Japanese teachers were not appropriately well-prepared to deal with real-life diverse classroom situations. This showed that there was a significant gap in the academic learning, practicum and teaching pedagogy.

Singaporean teachers, in particularly, are concerned about the school curriculum that is found to be content-intensive and its education system has always been extremely demanding. As aptly

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION quoted by Senge, Cambron-McCabe, Smith and Kleiner (2000), Singapore mainstream education system was described as the ‘industrial age school system’ which students were categorically sorted and classified into different classes of different abilities with the hopes of fixing or repairing any perceived flaws in students (Lim, Wong, & Tan, 2014). Consequently, it creates an unnecessary stress on both students and teachers and many teachers find it challenging to complete the content-intensive school syllabus before preparing them for their examinations. The negative stereotypes students with special needs in Singapore also posed big challenge to the inclusion.

Singapore was very much driven by “elitist, meritocratic and market economics philosophy”

(Mitchell & Desai, 2005; pg. 193) which placed a premium on the students’ academic achievement, obsession with international education ranking leagues and “tension between competition and collaboration, diversity and uniformity, and elitism and equity” (Mitchell & Desai, ibid; pg. 194).

Another finding surfaced by Lim and Tan (1999; pg. 340) showed that the mentality of marketization produced “forces and rewards that tear the very fabrics of building school communities that teach students to embrace and value diversity”, thus, resulting in two grave consequences: greater autonomy for select schools not to admit students of lower academic caliber and intense competition among schools in Singapore trying to outdo one another. Due to the strong ingrained elitist philosophy adopted by Singapore government (Milne & Mauzy, 1990), the current Singapore Prime

Minister, Lee (Lee, 1994; pg. 17) expected his government to move “closer to market in various social and economic policies, in order to keep waste, inefficiency and the burden on the state to the minimum”. It resulted in select schools to be granted greater autonomy in their flexibility in planning school curriculum and managing its own school manpower with little intervention from Education ministry. As a result, it invariably created a widening of intellectual and social gap between the elite and the mass in Singapore. Secondly, some informants from this study shared that there existed ongoing internal school ranking and class banding in which students of varying abilities were sorted accordingly. Many students with lower cognitive abilities due to their disabilities were often found in the lowest performing classes which received constant scorn and mockery as being educational outcasts. Furthermore, national obsession with educational league tables also unconsciously fueled

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION intense competition among schools in Singapore and it resulted in sheer competitive mentality in school principals to ramp up their marketing drives to recruit the bright students based on their academic achievement and extra-curricular performances. Parents were not alone in their academic frenzy; they were equally or overly concerned of not being lost out to others by sending their children to the best schools, splurging their money to send their child to cram schools or to enroll them in enrichment programmes. This unhealthy employment of narrowly-focused academic indicators spoke volumes of how Singapore views the inclusion of students with special needs differently.

Similarly, most of the respondents responded that the social perception including the parents of their child with special needs offered a disconcerting view of how Japanese schools, in general, functioned on the principle of ‘closed society’ that shut itself from participation in the civil society. It did not permit the members of ‘closed society’ to express their own individualism

(LeTendre, Hofer, & Shimizu, 2003). True sense of individualism was never well accepted in the patriarchal Japanese society that demanded members of society to conform to normative

‘role-playing’ in every aspect of society (Poon & Bryce, 2002). Moreover, many scholars observed the concept of ‘inclusive education’ was not readily accepted by many Japanese educational institutions. This statement was supported by two teachers’ feedback on their thoughts about inclusive education in Japan: one teacher noted, “We are still far from achieving the true inclusive education in Japan” and other teacher pointed out frankly, “In Japan, even though students with special needs are Japanese, could speak Japanese and look like Japanese, the society still views them differently”. Based on those feedbacks from Japanese teachers, it clearly presented few incentives for Japanese teachers to recognise and promote the importance of inclusive education.

Shimizu (1998; pg. 79) wrote in his article that Japanese education was not “set up to accommodate the individual differences” and it did not want to associate readily with the Western ideology that prized and esteemed the innate ability or individualism. However, it is well anticipated that every child’s ability is believed to be improve through one’s own efforts and this kind of thinking does not align well with the actual philosophy of inclusive education that recognises and appreciates

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION individualistic ability. Another researcher, Walsh (1993; pg. 127) expressed his observation about students with special need and wrote, “[the] core cultural belief is that all students are equal and should be treated as such” and therefore, any form of receiving supports from teachers or being placed separately in different settings for example special classroom or special school is considered as culturally unacceptable in this sense. This finding was supported by my interview with two

Japanese teachers who voiced their thoughts, “In Japan, we have to be fair to everyone, ensuring that everyone would receive equal treatment. I can only provide minimal support to them if they

[students with special needs] face any difficulty in their studies”. The other teacher shared, “Japan is a harmonious society which everyone should not be expected to stick out like the nail otherwise they will get hammered”. Brasor (2016) observed that how Japanese school system “guarantees of equality in Japan refer to something different: In elementary school, for example, all students should have the same books and uniforms and pencils and eat the same lunch, the idea being that no one is treated specially. Equal opportunity here means creating an environment where everyone starts from the same point and the same chance for improvement”. Unlike the Western proverb that expounds,

‘squeaky wheel gets the grease’, the Japanese saying goes the opposite: ‘the nail that sticks out get hammered down’. Receiving any special attention in the regular classrooms from teachers is largely frowned upon. Another interesting finding found that Japanese parents wanted their child to be placed in the regular class and even they did not want their child to receive any support, thinking that their child was not an atypical case. Due to the egalitarianism and strong deference for traditional norms that demands complete conformity and obedience in the Japanese society, it does not call for any room for any alternative methods of learning for the child with special needs. Coupled with the strong pressure from the Japanese society, every person with any kind of disability is considered as a private matter and it largely falls on the family responsibility to ensure that their child with special needs should not expected to act differently from the society otherwise they would be seen as creating ‘meiwaku’ nuisance to their society.

Teacher participants shared their strategies that addressed their challenges on dealing with students with special needs in their regular classrooms. Two similar recommendations from both

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION countries were the better optimisation of existing resources and modification of their teaching pedagogies. They felt that awareness-raising programmes on students with special needs and inclusive education, provision of greater accessibility facilities in schools, fostering of peer-acceptance among students, stronger leadership to ensure better teacher and expert support, social support and active community involvement with students with special needs could potentially improve teachers’ perspectives towards the inclusion of students with special needs (Ahsan, Sharma,

Deppeler, 2012). Better optimisation of funding and resources was the most common strategies adopted by teachers and this strategy to address the global phenomenon of shortage of funding and resources was largely reported in many studies carried out not only in the developing countries India

(Forlin et al., 2009) but also in developed countries (Harvey, Yssel, Bauserman, & Merbler, 2010;

Stella, Forlin, & Lan, 2007). Another suggestion shared by Singaporean teachers was to create a nurturing community space for teachers to feel empowered to deal with challenging students with their diverse needs in their classrooms. According to Welch (1996), teachers must feel nurtured within their school environment. He argued that schools must create positive environments that provided teachers with adequate physical and emotional sense of security to cope with their academic performances or to minimise the risks posed by their students with special needs. The findings from my informants confirmed if teachers were willing to share their problems as part of whole school shared responsibility, it could potentially contribute to the better development of professional ethos among them and benefit of their collective mental health (Joyce & Calhoun,

1996). Effective communication among teachers promoted healthy exchange of skills, built better rapports and facilitated problem-solving mentality. Lastly, collaboration with parents and teachers was the common strategy to allay their concerns in dealing with their students with special needs.

8.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE

The results of this present study present several policy and practical implications for those who are responsible in encouraging and implementing inclusive education in both countries. These are largely based on the major findings.

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

8.4.1 Need to balance training and experience From these major findings, we can see most Singaporean and Japanese teachers gained their experience through their first-hand interaction with their students with special needs, self-reading and occasional short sessions on special needs education training. However, these measures are not enough; there must have a strong need for better quality of training for all teachers including the school leaders. Majority of teachers felt that they did not gain much from their current courses on special needs education and they could not develop their working knowledge and skills that were essential to help them to cope better with their students with special needs. The key problem does not lie with the training itself but the question is what the content of the training should be best delivered to meet the needs of teachers who wanted to improve their teaching pedagogies for their students. It is suggested that in the beginning, the training needs to provide an overview of inclusive class trainings with practical case studies that were often mentioned by the interviewees. There seem to be lack of synergy between the theory behind inclusive teaching and practicum that helps teachers to acquire their practical experiences. Once teachers gain better understanding of what types of special needs their students have, then they can decide which specific training courses they should attend. From there, teachers are able to improve their mastery experience and confidence to deliver the lessons for diverse students learners. Several suggestions are proposed to prepare teachers better for inclusive class. Currently in Japan, there is no mention that all teachers (excluding special needs educators) are required to take special needs education training and if there is only need for them or they are asked to attend, they would enroll in these programmes. It is recommended that the special needs education should be part of all Japanese teacher education programmes for all beginning teachers rather than perceived as an optional programme for regular school teachers. From the findings, it showed that many school leaders were not fully engaged with students with special needs and more efforts could be expended to improve the training materials for school leaders so as to help them to understand inclusive education and to implement it better. It is important for the school leaders to develop different kinds of efficacy, not just only teaching-efficacy but also to develop them as a school administrator who is responsible to ensure that sufficient support is provided for

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION teachers and students and he/she should be able to collaborate well with parents and policy makers.

However, in Singapore, all beginning teachers including special needs educators are required to take compulsory 12-hour module on special needs education. Many Singaporean interviewees felt that the training courses should be beefed up to include more case studies and evidence-based practices. Some of them mentioned that the training could be only offered at one designated institution and given their heavy teaching workload, they were reluctant to attend courses. It is recommended that the training school could offer online lectures on fundamental theories on special needs education, inclusive education and some audio-video materials on other teachers’ best sharing practices at their convenience. This has been already implemented in Japan where teachers have more choices to select specific types of online lectures and they can view them on their smartphone or tablet. This can offset the traveling time and offer more flexibility for Singaporean teachers to attend online lectures on special needs education.

8.4.2 Strengthen the partnership between general and special needs teachers

Based on the interviews with teachers, they felt that they lacked of opportunities to share their expertise and resources with their colleagues who could have more experienced in dealing with their students. It is recommended to strengthen the collaboration between the general and special needs teachers as special need educators are perceived to have greater repository of specialised knowledge and experience in managing students with special needs. In Japan, special needs education classes in the mainstream schools are often perceived to be the starting point for the inclusive class practice for students with special needs. This is where many special needs educators teach students with special needs and these classes provide potential opportunities to encourage greater cooperation and collaboration between special needs educators and general teachers. Before the students with special needs enter the mainstream class with other students, special needs and regular teachers usually work together to discuss and plan the lessons to ensure that the students with special needs could fully participate in the lessons. In reality, based on the interviews with Japanese interviewees, the collaboration among them was ‘ad-hoc’ rather than on-going collaboration and sharing. Some of them mentioned that they would only be involved in the regular school lessons for

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION certain days of the week. Moreover, many special classes are physically located within the mainstream school settings with limited opportunity for real learning experiences for academic and social inclusion and students with special needs felt that they were disenfranchised from the mainstream classes. It is recommended that there should be ongoing collaboration between special and regular school teachers to design programmes on the frequent basis to allow students with special needs to be fully included in the classroom learning and to help them acquire their social skills in an organic setting.

In Singapore, there is no special needs education class in the mainstream school. Instead, under the current satellite partnership programme between certain special and mainstream schools, special schools, which are usually in the close proximity with the mainstream schools, send their students with special needs for regular classes conducted at the mainstream schools. This kind of arrangement often yields positive results as reported by many teachers and given the success of satellite partnership, it is recommended that more mainstream schools should be encouraged to participate in the satellite partnership with the special schools. Besides that, my informants also shared that all educators regardless of their hierarchical positions within the school organisations should be encouraged to engage in open dialogues on students with special needs. It helps to ‘flatten’ the organisation in such a way that there will be better channel of communication among teachers, allowing freer sharing of information on best classroom practices and diverse nature of children.

8.4.3 Legislation issue

Some teachers shared that legislation for the inclusion of students with special needs should be strengthened further. In the past, Singaporean disabled children were not covered under the

Compulsory Education Act but the Ministry of Education had just revised the Act to make it compulsory for all children with disabilities to attend schools on Nov 4, 2016. From 2019, children with moderate and severe disabilities are required to attend government-funded special schools.

Therefore it is too early to predict whether this revised Compulsory Education Act would have any impact on the teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy and it would help to improve the chance of including them in the regular schools. The results are yet to be seen until 2019. Nevertheless, there is

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION no disability law in place to protect the persons with disability including disabled children from discrimination. It is also recommended that Singapore government looks into the possibility of enacting the passage of new disability law to safeguard the rights of disabled citizens. As Singapore has already ratified the CRPD, there is a need for more specific disability-related legislation to cover the issue of educational inclusion adequately and this could encourage more schools to adopt pro-active measures to implement inclusive education for all diverse learners. This issue has to be seriously looked into.

Although Japan has successfully enacted the Act for Eliminating Discrimination against

Persons with Disability on April 1, 2016, it remains to be seen how Japan can safeguard the protection of persons with disabilities. There are many grey zones that need to be investigated and improved; for example, currently, there is no compulsory provision to help the deaf students to hear any emergency announcement made if any disaster e.g. earthquake or tsunami strikes. Some of the old schools remain disabled-unfriendly as they were not retrofitted with elevators or ramps. It is also recommended to strengthen the legislation to legitimize against the existing cultural and ideological forces that encourage exclusionary practices and policies. Introduction of an independent human right watchdog organisation is recommended to provide better consultancy to the government and to create an independent channel for persons with disabilities to voice their grievances against errant companies.

8.5 LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE STUDY

The present study presents some limitations. First the research sample obtained from those schools in both Japan and Singapore remained small. The data collected from questionnaires and interviews cannot be generalized to the actual population of Japanese and Singaporean in-service teachers. Thus, it limits the generalisability of the findings to teachers from different regions and different educational contexts e.g. high schools. One way is to circumvent this potential problem is to set a sufficient time frame to ensure that more time can be allocated to harvest more contacts with more schools and to hone stronger bargaining skills to convince them to participate in this study.

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Another important issue is the definition of the research scope. This research scope largely focuses on the school and personal aspects of the teachers, ignoring the family context and disabled and non-disabled students’ perception towards the inclusive education. Detailed study could be done further to get a better insight about the impact of family background on their child’s placement status.

Thirdly, these country case studies are not longitudinal enough to define what the researchers should conduct their observations of their particular research subjects over a period of time. Based on the results, one could not determine whether teachers’ attitudes and perceived teaching-efficacy were actually developed before embarking on their teaching careers or after becoming in-service teachers.

Another example is how the recent implementation of disability law in Japan and revised

Compulsory Education Act in Singapore could produce the change in their attitudes towards inclusive education and this requires long period of time to observe the changes. Therefore, a longitudinal analysis over period of time would probably provide us precise insights of what kind of contextual factors in two different countries could affect Singaporean and Japanese in-service teachers’ attitudes and perceived teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education. Lastly, while rolling out the Japanese questionnaires to the pool sample of Japanese in-service teachers, there might be some possibilities that some of the questionnaire items were not translated accurately to capture the original essence of the meaning and therefore the Japanese respondents may interpret certain questions differently.

Based on the above-discussed limitations, several recommendations for the future study are discussed. From the country case studies, it reveals that it calls for serious review of existing systems, teaching pedagogies and school policies that fail to achieve the objectives of inclusive education in both countries. First of all, this present findings only present certain slice of country population in

Japan and Singapore and it does not present the actual representation of what Singaporean and

Japanese in-service teachers’ efficacy and attitudes towards their students. Therefore, it could potentially provide a useful platform for further research to conduct greater in-depth research from different locations of each country to provide more accurate representative of teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy.

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Second, there is a need to consider various perspectives towards students with special needs in the regular schools for instance, perspectives of parents, peers and society as their perspectives would be likely significantly impact the implementation of inclusive education. Also, it is important to understand the actual experiences of students with special needs in their inclusive school settings and it is necessary to obtain their insights by expanding scope of research methods like classroom observation and interviews. Further research on understanding unique perspectives from students with special needs in the mainstream schools could provide an interesting dimension to it.

Another important area is that additional research in their teaching career and their training which teachers have undergone could be further considered to understand how the teacher training could influence their attitudes and teaching-efficacy. According to Fishbein and Ajzen (2010), the

Theory of Planned Behaviour assumes that the people’s attitudes towards particular object are likely to be changed if they receive new information on teacher trainings on inclusive education and how they could plan their career coping with their disabled students could be an important factor for their attitudes and teaching-efficacy towards inclusive education. In this current study, there is no further mention about the duration of the course and what kind of content that the training covers and it could be a good area of research to further understand how different types of trainings or length of training could impact the teachers’ attitudes and teaching-efficacy.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

This present study conducted in Japan and Singapore offers an opportunity to understand how different contextual factors influence mainstream teachers’ teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards the inclusive education for students with special needs. From the findings based on the quantitative and qualitative researches, it showed that Japanese and Singaporean teachers had displayed varying degrees of teaching-efficacy and attitudes towards students with special needs.

These findings may well provide useful information for the education providers and education ministries in Japan and Singapore.

These case study findings clearly articulate the gap between the idealism postulated behind the philosophy of inclusive education and the actual realities of teaching practices in Japanese and

Singapore schools. As a matter of fact, the vision of achieving a truly inclusive school desired by both countries had met with challenges to achieve and implement and it often results in the dissonance between the government’s policies and actual teaching practices. As discussed in this chapter, complex contextual issues in both countries such as large class sizes, insufficient knowledge and skills to deal with students with special needs, and lack of adequate resources and qualified manpower pose serious challenges to the implementation of inclusive education practices at regular schools. Unique to each country, Singapore’s overemphasis on academics and quest for education elitism and Japan’s long-standing foundation based on excessive egalitarianism also pose serious tension between the idealistic conceptualization of inclusive education and its actual implementation.

Coupled with external educational and social changes, truly successful transformation of schools in Japan and Singapore into truly inclusive school communities, hinges on the individuals including government leaders who are willing to embrace the educational values of diversity, equity and social justice. In this way, this could potentially influence their behaviours towards students with special needs and could create a positive ripple effect for the society as a whole. As two countries are working hard to push for greater inclusion of students with diverse needs, we need a stronger collaborative effort of all stakeholders from different levels to attain this goal.

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APPENDIX 1: INTERNATIONAL MANDATES ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

Year Key International Instruments on Education 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Article 26 - Ensures the right and to free and compulsory elementary education for all children. 1950s Normalisation Principle 1960 UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education – Articles 1, 3 and 4 1979 Conventions on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women – Article 10 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child – Articles 23, 28 and 29 - Ensures the right for all children to receive education without any discrimination on any ground 1990 The World Declaration on Education for All, Jomtien 1993 UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of Persons with Disabilities, Rule 6 - States that the education should be provided in an integrated school setting and in the general school setting. 1994 The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education - Affirms the right to education of every individual, regardless of individual differences, within regular education system and the right of children with special educational needs to receive whatever extra support they may require to ensure their effective education. 1999 Salamanca Five Years on Review 2000 World Education Forum Framework for Action, Dakar - Ensures that all children have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education by2015. Focuses on marginalized children and girls 2000 Millennium Development Goals focusing on Poverty Reduction and Development 2001 EFA Flagship on the Rights to Education for Children with Disabilities: Toward inclusion - First monitoring report to assess progress towards 6 main ‘Dakar’ EFA goals undertaken by 160 participating countries 2002 Biwako Millennium Framework for Action - Promote an inclusive, barrier-free and rights-based society for people with disabilities in the Asian and Pacific region in 21st century 2002 EFA Global Monitoring Report: EFA – is the world on track? 2003/4 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Gender and Education for All – the leap to equality 2005 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Education for All – the quality imperative 2006 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Literacy for Life 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - Promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure mainstreaming disability into development 2007 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Strong Foundations – early childhood care and education 2008 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Education for all by 2015 – will we make it? 2009 EFA Global Monitoring Report: why government matters 2010 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Reaching the marginalized 2011 EFA Global Monitoring Report: The hidden crisis: Armed conflicts and education 2012 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Youth and skills: Putting education to work 2013/4 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Teaching and learning: Achieving quality for all 2015 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Education for All 2000 – 2015: Achievements and Challenges - Keep stock of what participating countries have done and achieved their implementation of education for all. Source: UNESCO (2015)

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APPENDIX 2: ETHICAL CLEARANCE FROM IRB

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APPENDIX 3: EMAIL APPROVAL TO USE QUESTIONNAIRES

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APPENDIX 6: DESCRIPTION OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

Types of qualitative Explanation methods Grounded theory According to Charmaz (1995), through the collection and analysis of data about a particular phenomenon, a new theory arises from the data and it is designed to investigate the social processes from the bottom up. It is distinctly identified as “emergence of theory from data” (Willig, 2008; pp. 44). He also found that the grounded theory method could be useful for the quantitative researchers as they could generate the categories from quantitative data collected, thus deriving the theory from data. Theoretically, the researchers should not have any background information about this particular research topic and should enter the research field without any prior knowledge. As such, data analysis should commence at the same time as data collection to allow the researchers to re-evaluate their research questions and data collection processes and it involves a complex iterative process.

Ethnography It is simply a systematic study of people and the culture revolving around them and is originated from the field of anthropology. Harris & Johnson (2000) literally described ethnography as ‘a portrait of a people’ which referred to the description of that particular culture, customs, beliefs and behaviour upheld by a particular group of people. Furthermore, (Fielding, 1993; pg. 157) described it as the study of human behaviour in his/her own natural setting, ‘getting the seat of your pants dirty…in the real world, not the library’. This approach requires the researcher to investigate myriad of factors that influence the subjects’ daily lives so as to gain better understanding of the experience and global view of subjects who are under investigation (Bates, 2005). As a matter of fact, ethnography and case study are so similar to each other that many researchers tend to confuse between them. However, there are disparities in data collection method; as described earlier, ethnography is an art and science to decipher the meaning from the particular group of people or culture and requires the researcher not to impose his own views or to make any subjective analysis of what is being represented according to his background culture. It often involves participant observation which requires the ethnographer to become a part of the target group and jot down all intangible and tangible observations without making any sort of analysis. Unlike ethnography, case studies largely draw on the previous studies and the researchers could infer conclusions from the study of event, individual or group based on the historical records.

Interpretative In order to understand and explore the participants’ life experiences, IPA psychological analysis method can be helpful to give meanings to how participants make sense of (IPA) their own experiences and to help the researchers to interpret the meanings that attach to their life events. Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009; pg. 4) quoted that IPA sought to “capture the experiential and qualitative and which could still dialogue with mainstream psychology”. It is particularly useful to explore under-examined, difficult or new phenomenon and therefore, a lived experienced account of participants’ life experiences may provide rich details of the phenomenon from one’s perspectives.

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Narrative Analysis Sarbin (1986) described the narrative analysis an autobiographic interviewing approach to access to the rich repertoire of stories or accounts of events shared by the participants. Through their story-telling accounts, one could express their identity, relationships and feelings about particular account of events. It largely focuses on literary and philosophical analysis and considers the potential story that gives colour to the participants’ lives (Emden, 1998), unlike the content analysis which will be discussed later. Sarbin (1986) highlighted the importance of organizational aspect of narrative analysis: “The narrative is a way of organsing episodes, actions, and accounts of actions; is an achievement that brings together mundane facts and fantastic creations; time and place are incorporated. The narrative allows for the inclusion of actors’ reasons for their acts, as well as the causes of happening. (pp. 9).

Discourse analysis As its name suggests, this analysis focuses on the nuances of conversation with the participants (Potter, 1996) and it also extends to the participants’ use of language (linguistic repertoire) and the way the words are utilised in the conversation (rhetorical strategies). Researchers are usually interested in studying the usage of the language and how these participants use the language in tools of communication in order to construct social environment and shape their experiences (Gergen, 2001).

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