Critical Review of Inclusion Reports - Essay Example

Critical Review of Inclusion Reports Despite a large increase in the number of countries and schools that are now taking advantage of inclusion practices as a means of better serving their students, there has been a low number of studies actually conducted evaluating the effect this practice has had on the average working teacher. Chris Forlin has taken part in two such studies, however, as a means of trying to identify any specific problem areas inclusion has created in Australian schools as the first step in determining the best means of relieving any excessive occupational stress felt by teachers. These include “Inclusion: Identifying Potential Stressors for Regular Class Teachers” by Chris Forlin and “Inclusion: Is it Stressful for Teachers?” authored by Chris Forlin, John Hattie and Graham Douglas distributed by the Australian Society for the Study of Intellectual Disability. The primary focus of each article is in determining the actual human costs of inclusion practices as they are being implemented in Australia. “Inclusion: Identifying Potential Stressors” focuses primarily on identifying whether or not teachers are feeling additional stress as inclusion is incorporated within their classrooms as well as understanding where the greatest levels of stress are being felt while “Inclusion: Is it Stressful for Teachers?” examines the human costs involved in trying to include all students in a regular education classroom. Both reports highlight the changing roles of teachers as a result of this type of inclusion. These factors are essential to understanding the fullness of the problem and the effects it can have for the state, the teachers and the students. While it is the belief of the author that each of these reports are based upon quality research and have been conducted by well-respected researchers, the purpose of this report will be to assess to the degree to which these researchers have accurately phrased the severity of the current situation, identifying the major issues brought forward and the validity of the claims made as well as to point out any bias or gaps in the research conducted. In “Inclusion: Identifying Potential Stressors”, the author investigates whether or not teachers are actually feeling stress as the result of inclusion practices in several public schools in Queensland, Australia. In presenting the study, the author illustrates how Australia’s inclusion policies, while they are present in many of the states and provinces throughout the country, are not based upon the same sort of unifying governmental authority and therefore present a wide range of flexibility and differences in service and individual policies. In addition, the author highlights the fact that several districts, because of their remote location, frequently must care for more special needs students than others. This lack of central legislation has necessarily pushed much of the responsibility for instruction down to the local level, involving individual school administrators and teachers in more policy-making roles. “Such devolution of responsibility has led internationally to teaching becoming noticeably more complex, with sophisticated judgment being required by teachers and a large increase in their involvement in collective decision-making” (Hargreaves and Goodman, 1996 cited in Forlin, 2001: 236). Additionally, the literature review indicates that teachers do feel a great deal of job-related stress primarily focused in three main areas: administrative, classroom-based and personal with administrative tasks generally recognized as presenting the bulk of teacher-felt stress. Other issues that were uncovered in the literature review included the concept that younger teachers generally had greater stress levels than older teachers, a significant lack of appropriate time available to attend to the needs of the special needs student as well as the regular ed students while still performing other duties such as paperwork and lesson preparation and a widespread failure on the part of educational facilities and districts to provide adequate training for teachers about to receive special needs students within their regular ed classrooms. The major problem with these findings, according to the author, is that they fail to concentrate on the specific factors that are brought into play when inclusion is involved as opposed to typical stressors felt by teachers as a result of changing responsibilities in other areas of the workplace. Therefore, the study reported attempted to focus on the potential stressors presented for teachers specifically as it applied to inclusion of a child with moderate to severe disability within a regular classroom. The study itself was conducted by soliciting the opinions of the participants themselves through the means of a specially prepared questionnaire. The questionnaire had four sections which dealt with general demographic information, specific information regarding special needs students in the classroom, identification of potential stressors and definition of various coping strategies employed. It was then distributed to all regular class teachers working in government-sponsored primary schools in Queensland who had been identified as being involved in an inclusion program. While it is reported that 571 responses were received from the initial distribution, it is never mentioned neither how many questionnaires were sent out nor how many teachers within the province were identified as having a special needs student with moderate to severe disability in their classroom. Because of this, it is impossible to ascertain whether the eventual sampling size of 571 responses was appropriate for this study. Participants in the study are described in a number of ways. According to Forlin, 79 percent of the respondents were female and one third of the respondents reported teaching multiple grade levels. Eighty-nine percent of the respondents were classroom teachers and 92 percent of them were within reasonable distance from a special needs education center. Perhaps because of this, only 32 percent of the respondents reported having been involved in an inclusion classroom for more than three years although the average teaching experience was 14 years. Surprisingly, only 29 percent of those responding to the survey reported having received any kind of special training regarding inclusion in the regular education classroom. While the methodology for this study seems appropriate as the concept of the study was to gain impressions of the impact being felt by a large number of individuals, the use of the questionnaire provided little room for individual, open-ended response and no follow-up research. Responses were compared for broad categorizations, but no indication was made that any actual analysis of data beyond simple comparison was conducted. One of the limitations of the study was the sampling size selected. The schools selected for the study were included because of their classification as government-sponsored primary schools and questionnaires were mailed based on reports of inclusion occurring within a specific classroom. No indication is given as to how many teachers had been identified as being participants in an inclusion classroom nor is it indicated how those teachers were identified. While a great majority of the respondents were actual teachers, which was the focus of the study, the small number of administrator responses, who do not face the same challenges of the teacher, are not independently discussed or factored in as possibly skewing the teacher responses. While some statistical data was gathered, it did not go far enough to analyze the differences between the reports of administrative staff and teachers. If the goal of the report was, as is indicated, to assess the levels of stress felt by teachers as the result of inclusion, some mention should have been made of the administrative differences or these responses should have been excluded from the overall study. The second report under review, “Inclusion: Is it Stressful for Teachers?” authored by Chris Forlin, John Hattie and Graham Douglas, is presented in a similarly formalized format investigating the perception of stress incurred as a result of inclusion practices on the part of the teacher as compared with the principles of the same institutions. The question of a child’s rights to educational opportunity is questioned in terms of inclusion practices. It is indicated that special needs children forced into mainstream classrooms are, by reason of their disability in practice if not design, excluded from participation in some classroom activities. In addition, it is argued that in trying to assure the rights of the special needs child, the rights of the other children in the classroom and the rights of the instructor may be infringed upon. Requirements of teachers to cater to the special needs of children for whom they’ve had no special training are further exacerbated by the need to meet increasing responsibility for student outcomes on standardized tests. “According to some reports, educators have become progressively more disillusioned by these demands and the accompanying pressure placed on their professional role” (Forlin et al, 1996: 201). A general lack of acceptance among educators regarding inclusion practices in the mainstream classroom prompted the study included in this report. This study looked into the additional stress such policies are adding to an increasingly stressful career path to determine whether inclusion is eroding Australia’s educator pool. The study detailed in this report took into account the stress levels of not only regular education teachers being forced to accept special needs students into their mainstream classrooms, but also the stress levels experienced by teachers of education support centers (special needs classrooms typically based within the regular education building designed to transition students from special needs to mainstream participation) and the principals of these facilities. The sample size is reported in great detail, delineating the overall sample size, how it was selected, and the specifics of each category of teacher/administrator by experience level, type of teaching and gender. “Overall, eighty-four percent of educators were involved with the inclusion of children with a disability” (Forlin et al, 1996: 205). The study was limited to Western Australia and the sample size was deemed to be adequate for the scope of this study. In order to measure the subjective experience of stress experienced by the educator, the researchers for this study used magnitude scaling with the development of two reliable scales for assessment. “It [magnitude scaling] has been found to have considerable strengths over category scaling in that it places no investigator-imposed restraints upon response measures, and allows for direct comparisons to be made so that judgments are subsequently precise and dependable” (Forlin et al, 1996: 205). This method of assessment is considered to be highly valid. Educators participating in the study were asked to rate the stress felt by a fictional teacher in a specified classroom scenario involving a special needs student. Results of the questionnaires used in this portion of the study were fully analyzed with findings reported in graphic and text detail, inviting readers of the study to conduct their own analysis and concur with or deny the findings presented. In this regard, the study is considered to be quite valid. One weakness of the study is the subjective nature of the experience of stress. Although the study uses a reliable and highly valid instrument of measurement in the form of the magnitude scale, emotional reaction in the real-world classroom as compared to reaction to a presented scenario can often be widely different. The finding that the “stress of coping with the child with a mild intellectual disability was attributed to be considerably higher by those educators who were currently involved with inclusion” (Forlin et al, 1996: 212) as compared to those teachers not involved with inclusion who attributed greater stress with coping with the regular child would be more relevant if the percentage of participants involved in inclusion didn’t significantly outweigh the percentage of teachers not involved. Other factors could be contributing to these results. The wording of the study is somewhat misleading for those who are not fully versed in data analysis and tend to skip over the detailed numbers. It is reported in the findings that teachers reported similar amounts of stress regardless of their involvement or non-involvement with inclusion programs. In summarizing their findings, the researchers indicated that “teachers attributed similar levels of stress regardless of involvement in an inclusion program, or gender” (Forlin et al, 1996: 212). This could be taken to mean that teachers who were not included in inclusion programs felt the same amount of stress in their teaching environment as those teachers who were involved in inclusion programs, but in reality, the teachers were all responding to the same presented scenario, that of a teacher attempting to deal with a special needs child in a mainstream classroom while still attempting to provide the educational curriculum requirements to all students within the classroom. A better way of reporting their findings would be to indicate that ‘teachers responding to the inclusion scenario questionnaire attributed similar levels of stress regardless of actual involvement in inclusion programs’. Finally, the study did not screen out additional sources of stress that might be experienced by teachers in their presentation of the questionnaire scenario. Instead, they ensured other sources of stress were factored in with teachers’ assessments. “Degree of stress was based on the premise that equality of educational opportunity relied on a teacher ensuring that all students achieved to their potential when educated in a regular classroom” (Forlin et al, 1996: 206). By including this as part of the rating, researchers ensured that teachers attributed the highest levels of stress possible. If other factors were screened out, the findings that stress levels in regular classrooms among teachers were five times higher when included in an inclusion program might have weighed out differently, but would have probably still indicated higher stress levels overall. This study was presented in a highly scientific format that enabled replication, further analysis and verification. The methodology was sound, the sampling was sufficient, instruments of measurement were as valid as is currently possible and the reports generated were highly informative. Discussion was extensive and related to the available literature in such a way that it supported what had already been found. While segments of the study are difficult to understand for those not fully versed in data analysis, this study was well-presented and conducted so as to provide significant results that can be utilized for further research and as supporting evidence in reforming the educational system to something that protects the rights of all individuals within the learning environment and more closely examines the concepts of equality and opportunity for all students. Although the two studies are obviously closely related, even down to including the same author, it remains somewhat like comparing apples and oranges to compare the two reports included in this analysis. While the first study focuses on a broader range of issues, the methodology of the study is unclear and there are no units of measurement or tools of analysis upon which outside researchers can compare results or duplicate studies. Important statistical details are missing that would enable the reader of the study to determine more accurately how teachers in inclusion classrooms assess their own levels of stress as a result of the special needs student. The second study on the other hand presents all of this information while leaving out the details of the questionnaire used, therefore important aspects of the presented scenario are missing, such as how important or stressed was the concept of equal opportunity for students or the need to adhere to curriculum schedules. However, this second study was much more scientific in its data gathering methods, presenting valid measurement tools, detailed data analysis and scientifically based sampling sizes. In terms of making the data available to a wide public audience, the first study was perfectly suited to bringing the issues to a wide readership. The plain-spoken language, straight forward presentation and tendency to reduce things to a basic understanding rather than a more specific analysis gave a semblance of professional approach without a confusion of scientific terminology. This type of approach is also utilized in second study in which the facts are laid on the table, the results are presented in a straightforward manner and the research is given little to no indication of researcher bias one way or another despite its inclusion of scientific and more formalized data. The second report, data rich and conversation light, presents the true scientific basis upon which much of the more friendly and readable first report rests, the concept of teacher stress and responsibility as it is experienced is communicated clearly through each report, highlighting an increasing urgency for educational reform on a worldwide scale. References Forlin, Chris; Hattie, John and Douglas, Graham. (1996). “Inclusion: Is it Stressful for Teachers?” Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability. Vol. 21, N. 3, pp. 199-217. Forlin, Chris. (2001). “Inclusion: Identifying Potential Stressors for Regular Class Teachers.” Educational Research. Vol. 43, N. 3, 235-245. Read More