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Preservice teachers' attitudestoward inclusion: Early childhoodeducation and elementaryeducation programsHyun‐Joo Jeon a & Carla A. Peterson b

a Human Development & Family Studies , Iowa StateUniversity , 63 LeBaron Hall, Ames, IA, 50011, USA Phone:+1–515–294–4898 E-mail:b Human Development & Family Studies , Iowa StateUniversity , 63 LeBaron Hall, Ames, IA, 50011, USAPublished online: 25 Apr 2008.

To cite this article: Hyun‐Joo Jeon & Carla A. Peterson (2003) Preservice teachers' attitudestoward inclusion: Early childhood education and elementary education programs, Journal ofEarly Childhood Teacher Education, 24:3, 171-179, DOI: 10.1080/1090102030240306

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Pergamon

Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 24 (2003) 171-179

Journal of y

ChildhoodTeacher

Education

Preservice teachers' attitudes toward inclusion: Earlychildhood education and elementary education programs

Hyun-Joo Jeon*, Carla A. PetersonHuman Development & Family Studies, Iowa State University, 63 LeBaron Hall, Ames, IA 50011, USA

Abstract

Teachers' attitudes toward inclusion of children with disabilities play a central role in the successful inclu-sion of these children into general education classrooms. This study examined possible predictors of preserviceteachers' attitudes toward (1) persons with disabilities, and (2) inclusion of children with disabilities into generaleducation classrooms. Participants were students majoring in early childhood education and elementary educa-tion. Preservice teachers' attitudes toward persons with disabilities and inclusion were explained significantlyby their personal relationships with persons who have disabilities and the number of courses related to specialeducation/teaching strategies taken. However, preservice teachers' experiences working with persons who havedisabilities was not a significant predictor. Further, the relations between preservice teachers' attitudes towardinclusion and personal experience variables were mediated by their attitudes toward persons with disabilities.This study provides evidence that more effective, practical experiences and course content related to childrenwith disabilities, inclusion, and teaching strategies need to be provided in teacher education programs to sup-port successful efforts with inclusion. This study also suggests that teacher education programs should strive toimprove students' attitudes toward inclusion, as well as toward persons with disabilities.© 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Importance of teachers' attitudes

Attitudes are groups of constructs that describethe structure and content of mental states that drivea person's actions (Richardson, 1994). In the educa-tion field, teachers' attitudes are important constructsthat guide their thinking processes, knowledge ac-quisition, teaching strategies, and classroom manage-ment practices. These attitudes are considered oneof many factors influencing successful education im-plementation (Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1994). Forthis reason, teachers' attitudes have become a topicfrequently mentioned in teacher education research.Teacher attitudes also appear to play a crucial rolein the successful implementation of special educa-tion services (Bender, Vail, & Scott, 1995; Schumm,Vaughn, Gordon, & Rothlein, 1994). The attitudes of

*Corresponding author. Tel: +1-515-294-4898.E-mail address: hijeon@iastate.edu (H.J. Jeon).

teachers who work with children who have disabili-ties may be an important influence on these children'sacademic achievement, behavior, and emotional de-velopment.

2. Role of inclusion

Special education legislation, such as the Amer-icans with Disabilities Act (P.L. 101-336) and theIndividuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA,97), has promoted the general trend of includingchildren with disabilities in a variety of early child-hood education settings. Inclusion of children withand without disabilities is recommended by profes-sional organizations in early childhood special edu-cation and early childhood education. Recommendedpractices in early intervention/early childhood spe-cial education from the Division of Early Children(Sandall, McLean, & Smith, 2000), as well as

1090-1027/$ - see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jecte.2003.10.005

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172 H.J. Jeon, C.A. Peterson /Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 24 (2003) 171-179

Developmentally Appropriate Practice (Bredekamp& Copple, 1997) from the National Association forthe Education of Young Children address the impor-tance of high-quality inclusive programs to optimizethe development of all children. In a national study,more than 74% of participating early childhoodprograms reported enrolling at least one child withdisabilities (Wolery et al., 1993). Even though inclu-sion is a common practice, one of the main barriersto effective implementation is that parents and prac-titioners often assume that segregated education pro-grams provide better educational services to meet theindividual needs of children who have disabilities. Incontrast with this concern, Buysse, Wesley, Bryant,and Gardner (1999) found that the overall quality ofservices provided in inclusive early childhood pro-grams was superior to that provided in non-inclusiveprograms. Program quality was associated stronglywith a variety of teacher characteristics (e.g., educa-tion, professional experience, attitudes, knowledge,and skills).

3. Teachers' attitudes and inclusion

However, physically including children with dis-abilities in general education classrooms may notresult in the positive outcomes expected if teachers'attitudes toward these children are negative (Semmel,Abernathy, Butera, & Lesar, 1991). Several studieshave provided evidence that teachers' attitudes to-ward children with disabilities and their inclusion areassociated with the teachers' classroom performances(e.g., Bender et al., 1995; Schumm et al., 1994;Semmel et al., 1991). Schumm et al. (1994) foundsignificant relations among teachers' self-reportedbeliefs, skills, and practices related to planning ef-fectively and making adaptations for children withlearning disabilities. Like Schumm and her col-leagues, Bender et al. (1995) found that teacherswith less positive attitudes reported using empiri-cally validated instructional strategies less frequently.Therefore, research to facilitate understanding of howteachers develop positive attitudes toward inclusionis necessary. This current study addressed this issueby examining preservice teachers' attitudes towardinclusion.

Efforts to improve teaching practices in inclusivesettings have prompted many studies of inserviceteachers' attitudes toward persons with disabilitiesand inclusion (e.g., Bender et al., 1995; Buysse,Wesley, Keyes, & Bailey, 1996; Center & Ward,1987; Diebold, 1986; Harasymiw & Home, 1976;Home, 1983; Larrivee & Cook, 1979; Mulvihill,Shearer, & Van Horn, 2002; Semmel et al., 1991;Stoiber, Gettinger, & Goetz, 1998; Thomas, 1985).

To explain differences in teachers' attitudes towardpersons with disabilities and inclusion, it is neces-sary to investigate influential factors related to theirattitudes. Factors that may influence attitudes towardinclusion have been identified by several researchers.Thomas (1985) categorized these influential fac-tors into societal factors, institutional factors, andpersonal factors.

Societal factors refer to the impact of the cultureto which the individual belongs and social norms onindividual behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. Teachers'attitudes toward inclusion could be affected by theviews of persons with disabilities in the society(Thomas, 1985).

Institutional factors also have been included insome studies of teachers' attitudes toward inclusion.Teachers' attitudes toward inclusion could be af-fected by physical aspects of the school, as well asby some aspects of the supportiveness of the schoolorganization. Both these aspects can be categorizedas within-institutional factors. Accordingly, physicalenvironment factors such as school size, location,classroom size, and types of school setting are in-cluded in this category (Larrivee & Cook, 1979;Mulvihill et al., 2002; Thomas, 1985). Supportiveorganizational aspects of the school include level ofadministrative support received and availability ofthe supportiveness for the service providers (Larrivee& Cook, 1979; Thomas, 1985). Generally, supportiveorganizational factors influence teachers' attitudesmore than do physical environment factors.

Personal factors are the effect of experiences andpersonal interactions on attitude. Variables related toteachers' experiences and interactions are number ofyears spent in teaching; experiences working withchildren who have disabilities, as well as perceptionsof the degree of success experienced with childrenwho have disabilities; confidence in one's teachingskills; perceptions about attitudes of special educa-tors who work with the teachers directly; teacher'srole characteristics; pre-service training background;and in-service training. Additionally, teachers' de-mographic characteristics such as gender, educa-tional level, and personality are considered personalfactors.

Among personal experience factors, number ofyears spent in teaching (Center & Ward, 1987; Stoiberet al., 1998) and experiences working with childrenwho have disabilities (Diebold, 1986; Harasymiw &Home, 1976; Mulvihill et al., 2002) have not shownconsistent relations with teachers' attitudes toward in-clusion. For example, Center and Ward (1987) found anegative relation between teachers' years in teachingand their attitudes, but Stoiber et al. (1998) found apositive relation. In an early study, Larrivee and Cook(1979) found a significant relation between teachers'

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H.J. Jeon, C.A. Peterson/Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 24 (2003) 171-179 173

attitudes and their experiences working with childrenwho have disabilities. However, recent research hasnot found significant relations between teachers' at-titudes and their experiences working with childrenwho have disabilities (Diebold, 1986; Mulvihill et al.,2002).

Unlike teacher's work experience, perceptions ofthe degree of success experienced with children whohave disabilities (Larrivee & Cook, 1979), confidencein one's teaching skills (Bender et al., 1995; Schummet al., 1994; Thomas, 1985), and perceptions aboutattitudes of special educators who work with theteachers directly (Thomas, 1985) were related consis-tently to attitudes regarding inclusion. For example,Center and Ward (1987) found a negative relation be-tween teachers' years in teaching and their attitudes,but Stoiber et al. (1998) found a positive relation.In an early study, Larrivee and Cook (1979) founda significant relation between teachers' attitudes andtheir experiences working with children who havedisabilities. However, recent research has not foundsignificant relations between teachers' attitudes andtheir experiences working with children who havedisabilities (Diebold, 1986; Mulvihill et al., 2002).

Studies of the attitudes of inservice teachers andthese related variables have provided valuable infor-mation to teacher educators, but these studies do notsupplant the need for research on the attitudes of pre-service teachers (Pajares, 1992). Investigation of allthese societal, institutional, and personal factors re-lated to inservice teachers' attitudes toward inclusionis not possible with preservice teachers due to theirlimited professional experiences (Avramidis, Bayliss,& Burden, 2000). An investigation of factors poten-tially related to preservice teachers' attitudes aboutdisabilities could clarify how teacher educators mod-ify preservice teachers' attitudes. However, only afew studies have investigated the attitudes of preser-vice teachers (e.g., Avramidis et al., 2000; Beattie,Anderson, & Antonak, 1997; Cook, 2002; Dailey &Halpin, 1981; Sesow & Adams, 1982). Cook (2002)found that preservice teachers perceived inclusion ofchildren with different categories of disabilities differ-ently. For example, inclusion of children with learn-ing disabilities or with developmental delays wereperceived more favorably by preservice teachers thanthose with social/emotional needs. Researchers haveinvestigated whether delivery methods of universityclass content, such as showing video tapes of chil-dren with disabilities (Beattie et al., 1997; Dailey &Halpin, 1981) or being taught by an instructor whohas a disability (Beattie et al., 1997) influence the at-titudes of preservice teachers toward individuals withdisabilities. These quasi-experimental studies of pre-service teachers' attitudes toward inclusion limitedspecific delivery methods to explore possible factors

related to preservice teachers' attitudes. Some deliv-ery methods were not realistic in all preservice edu-cation programs (e.g., being taught by an instructorwith a disability).

Only a few studies of student teachers' attitudestoward inclusion have examined the relations betweenpersonal characteristics or experiences and their atti-tudes. To date, investigations of the relations betweenstudent teachers' attitudes toward inclusion and othervariables, have been limited in scope (Avramidiset al., 2000; Sesow & Adams, 1982). Avramidis andhis colleagues did examine the relations between per-sonal characteristics, such as gender and major, andstudent teaching sites' institutional variables (e.g.,area of school, size of school, and size of classroom)with students in secondary education programs. Theyfound that student teachers' gender and major wererelated to their attitudes, but the institutional vari-ables did not predict the student teachers' attitudestoward inclusion. Leyser (1988) found that a specialprogram that included an additional 10-15 creditsof special education courses influenced positivelypreservice teachers' attitudes. A previous study ex-amined the relations between preservice teachers' ex-periences and their attitudes toward inclusion (Sesow& Adams, 1982). Sesow and Adams examinedhow student teachers' personal experience variables,such as special education courses taken, experiencesworking with children who have disabilities duringstudent teaching, and having relatives or friends whohave disabilities were related to their attitudes to-ward inclusion. Sesow and Adams suggested thatpossible relations between preservice teachers' atti-tudes and their personal experience variables existeven though most of their results were not significantdue to small samples of students being included.Therefore, there is a need to better understand vari-ables related to preservice teachers' attitudes towardinclusion.

The current study was undertaken to investigatethe relations between preservice teachers' attitudestoward persons with disabilities and their inclusioninto general education classrooms and the preser-vice teachers' personal experiences. The followingresearch questions were addressed: (1) Are there dif-ferences in attitudes toward persons with disabilitiesand toward inclusion between students majoring inunified early childhood education and in elementaryeducation? (2) Are preservice teachers' attitudes to-ward persons with disabilities and inclusion predictedby the teachers' major, number of courses related tospecial education taken, personal relationships, andwork experiences? (3) Are relations between preser-vice teachers' attitudes toward inclusion and thesepredictors mediated by their attitudes toward personswith disabilities?

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4. Method

4.1. Participants in the study

Participants in this study were 297 undergraduatestudents majoring in a unified early childhood ed-ucation program or elementary education at a largemidwestern university. The unified early childhoodeducation program prepares students to work withchildren, who do and do not have disabilities, frombirth through age 8. All students were required totake courses in the Department of Curriculum andInstruction, as well as courses related to their majorsubject areas. The majority of participants (91.0%)were female. This sample seems to reflect the genderratio of the population of preservice teachers over-all (AACTE, 1991). Most of the students who par-ticipated in this study were Caucasian (97.8%). Theparticipants' mean age was 21.2 years (SD = 3.3),ranging from 17 to 42 years. The distribution of aca-demic majors and educational levels of the studentsare presented in Table 1. Half the participants reportedthat they had some experience working with peoplewho have disabilities, and 81.7% of the students hadpersonal relationships with individuals who have dis-abilities.

4.2. Instruments

The Scale of Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons(SADP; Antonak, 1982) and the Opinions Relativeto Mainstreaming Scale (ORMS; Larrivee & Cook,1979) were used to measure attitudes toward per-sons with disabilities and inclusion, respectively. Ageneral information questionnaire was also used tocollect data to address the research questions. TheSADP and the ORMS were modified for recent ter-minology to measure attitudes regarding inclusion ofchildren with disabilities into general education class-rooms (e.g., "regular classroom", "handicapped",and "mainstreaming" were replaced by "general ed-ucation classroom", "children with disabilities" and"inclusion" accordingly). These instruments ask theparticipants to express their agreement with eachstatement on a six-point continuum ranging fromstrongly disagree (—3) to strongly agree (+3). Afternegative items were reverse-coded, all items wererecoded into a positive continuum ranging from 1to 6. Finally, mean scores of all items from eachinstrument were calculated to obtain overall attitudestoward persons with disabilities and inclusion. Ac-cording to previous studies (e.g., Beattie et al., 1997),the SADP and the ORM have satisfactory psycho-metric characteristics and their internal consistencycoefficients ranged from .76 to .88 and from .89 to.92, respectively. In this study, un-standardized Cron-

Table 1Participants' demographic characteristics (N = 279)

Age (years)a

Less than 20202122More than 22

Level of educationFreshmanSophomoreJuniorSeniorBachelor's degree

Major3

ECEEEEE with Sp Ed

Experience with disabled11

NoYes

Relationships with disableda

FamilyRelativeFriend and acquaintNo

N

5482842731

472

1138310

10515321

125152

2769

13249

Percent

18.329.430.29.7

11.1

1.425.840.530.8

1.5

37.654.8

7.5

44.855.2

9.724.747.317.6

ECE: Unified Early Childhood Education/Early ChildhoodSpecial Education.EE with Sp Ed: Elementary Education with Special Educa-tion major.EE: Elementary Education major.

a Total number and percentage values don't equal 279and 100, respectively, due to non-responses.

bach alpha coefficients of the SADP and the ORMwere .76 and .87, respectively.

Students' majors were recoded as early childhoodeducation (1), and elementary education includingelementary education with special education (2) be-cause this research focused on the ages of childrenthat preservice teachers will teach in the future. Thenumber of special education/teaching strategy coursevariables captured the number of courses taken withcontent related to special education, inclusion, oradaptive teaching strategies. The personal relation-ship variables measured respondents' close personalrelationships with a person who has a disability.The working experience variable, which measureswhether preservice teachers have experience work-ing with a person who has a disability, was used inthis study because practicum experience, experienceteaching children with disabilities, or the length ofworking experience were not significantly correlatedwith preservice teachers' attitude variables.

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4.3. Procedures

All data were collected during fall semester of1999. Thirty-one class sections were identified asserving students targeted for this study (e.g., studentsmajoring in early childhood education or elemen-tary education). The researchers personally contactedinstructors who taught these courses. The courseswhose instructors did not respond (n = 9) or those inwhich students were enrolled concurrently with otheridentified courses or students who were student teach-ing (n = 3) were excluded. Students in 19 coursesections participated in the study. The questionnaireswere distributed to students during one class periodin each course, and it took about 15min for the stu-dents to complete the questionnaires.

5. Results

5.1. Difference in attitudes by major

Overall mean scores of the SADP and the ORMSwere 4.86 (SD = .54) and 4.25 (SD = .64), respec-tively and had normal distributions. For each majorgroup, the mean scores of the SADP of the EarlyChildhood Education (ECE), the Elementary Educa-tion with special education, and the Elementary Edu-cation (EE) were 4.91 (SD = .51), 5.01 (SD = .48),and 4.81 (SD = .56), respectively. The mean scoresof the ORMS of the ECE, the EE with special educa-tion, and the EE were 4.43 (SD = .57), 4.22 (SD =.54), and 4.14 (SD = .66), respectively. To com-pare these attitude scores between students in ECEprogram and those in EE program, a Mest was em-ployed. There was not a significant difference in at-titudes toward persons with disabilities between stu-dents in ECE (M = 4.9, SD = .51) and in EE (M =

4.80, SD = .55), f(277) = 1.14, d = .08, p = .25(two-tailed). However, there was a significant differ-ence in attitudes toward inclusion between students inECE and EE. Students in ECE tended to have morepositive attitudes toward inclusion (M = 4.43, SD =.57) than did those in EE (M = 4.15, SD = .65),/(277) = 3.66, d = .28, p < .001 (two-tailed).

5.2. Correlations among variables

Zero-order correlations between attitudes towardpersons with disabilities and attitudes toward inclu-sion of children with disabilities and the predictors(e.g., educational level, major, relationships with per-sons who have disabilities, number of courses relatedto special education/teaching strategies taken, andexperiences working with persons who have disabil-ities) were examined using Pearson product-momentcorrelations. These correlations are presented inTable 2. Preservice teachers' major was significantlycorrelated with their educational level and the numberof courses taken that are related to teaching strate-gies/special education content. These correlationresults indicate that there may be multi-collinearityamong these variables (educational level, major,and number of courses taken). Therefore, educationlevel was not included in further regression analyses.However, the major was used as a covariate sincethere were differences in mean scores on attitudesbetween students in the two majors. Magnitudesof correlations between attitudes toward inclusionand educational level, and number of courses takenwere larger than were those of correlations betweenattitudes toward persons with disabilities and educa-tional level, and number of courses taken. However,magnitude of correlation between attitudes towardpersons with disabilities and personal relationshipswas larger than was that of the correlation between

Table 2Zero-order correlations between variables (N = 279)

Variables

MajorEducational levelCoursea

Personal relationshipWorking experienceSADPb

ORMSC

-.38*** -.59***

.16**

.12*

.14*

.16"

.20***

-.22***.23***.24***.15*

.57*

a Number of courses related to special education and teaching strategy taken.b Scores of attitudes toward persons with disabilities.c Scores of attitudes toward inclusion.* p < .05.**p< .01.***/>< .001.

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176 H.J. Jeon, C.A. Peterson / Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 24 (2003) 171-179

Table 3Summary of regression analysis for variables predictingattitudes toward persons with disabilities

Variable B SEB

Major .05 .08 .04Courses .03 .01 .19"Personal relationship .12 .04 .20"*Working experience .02 .06 .04

R2 = .Ql, /> = .001." p < .01.*** p< .001.

attitudes toward inclusion and personal relationships.Attitudes toward inclusion of children with dis-abilities were significantly correlated with attitudestoward persons who have disabilities.

5.3. Attitudes toward persons with disabilities

The relationships between preservice teachers'attitudes toward persons with disabilities and theirpersonal experience variables were examined usinglinear regression analysis (Table 3). In the regressionmodel, preservice teachers' major, the number ofcourses including special education content/teachingstrategies taken, personal relationships with per-sons with disabilities, and experience working withpersons who have disabilities were included. This re-gression model explained 6.6% of the total varianceof preservice teachers' attitudes toward individualswith disabilities. The variance of attitudes towardpersons with disabilities was explained significantlyby the number of courses including special educationcontent/teaching strategies taken and by personal re-lationships with persons with disabilities. However,experience working with persons who have disabili-ties was not a significant predictor of attitudes toward

persons with disabilities. Preservice teachers whohad close personal relationships with persons withdisabilities were more likely to hold positive attitudestoward persons with disabilities after controlling forthese other variables. Also, preservice teachers whohad taken more courses related to special educationor teaching strategies were more likely to hold pos-itive attitudes toward persons with disabilities aftercontrolling for these other variables.

5.4. Attitudes toward inclusion

Next, the relationships between preserviceteachers' attitudes toward inclusion of childrenwith disabilities and their personal experience vari-ables were examined using linear regression anal-yses (Table 4). In this regression model, preserviceteachers' major, the number of courses including spe-cial education content/teaching strategies taken, per-sonal relationships with persons with disabilities, andexperience working with persons who have disabil-ities were included. This regression model explained9.1% of the total variance of preservice teachers'attitudes toward inclusion. The variance of attitudestoward persons with disabilities was accounted forby the number of courses including special educa-tion content/teaching strategies taken and personalrelationships with persons with disabilities. Again,experience working with persons who have disabil-ities was NOT a significant predictor of attitudestoward inclusion. Preservice teachers who had closepersonal relationships with persons with disabilitieswere more likely to hold positive attitudes toward in-clusion after controlling for these other variables. Pre-service teachers who had taken more courses relatedto special education or teaching strategies were morelikely to hold positive attitudes toward persons withdisabilities after controlling for these other variables.

Table 4Summary of regression analysis for variables predicting attitudes toward inclusion

MajorCoursePersonal relationshipWorking experienceSADP

Model la

B

- .15.04.12

-.08

SEB

.10

.02

.04

.08

-1.11.19*.16"

-.06

Model 2b

B

- .18.02.04

-.08.64

SEB

.08

.01

.04

.06

.06

P-.14*-.08

.05-.06

.54***

SADP: Scores of attitudes toward persons with disabilities.a R2 = .09, p < .001.b R2 = .36, p < .001.* p < .05." p< .01.***;>< .001.

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In order to investigate mediating effects of atti-tudes toward persons with disabilities on attitudes to-ward inclusion, attitudes toward persons with disabil-ities was added in the same regression model (seeTable 4). The magnitude of the relations between pre-dictors and attitudes toward inclusion was changedafter controlling for preservice teachers' attitudes to-ward persons with disabilities. The number of coursesrelated to teaching strategies and special educationor personal relationships with persons who have dis-abilities was not a significant predictor, but preser-vice teachers' major was a significant predictor. Thisfinding indicates that preservice teachers' attitudes to-ward persons with disabilities may be a mediator inthe relation between their attitudes toward inclusionand their experience variables.

6. Discussion

One important trend in education is the increasingnumber of children with disabilities enrolling in a va-riety of educational settings. This trend highlights therelevance of attitudes of teachers toward inclusion andchildren with disabilities for inclusive practices to besuccessful in general education classrooms. There areseveral studies that investigated the effects of specificdelivery methods of inclusive content on preserviceteachers' attitudes toward inclusion. This study is anextension of efforts to understand attitudes about in-clusion and children with disabilities held by preser-vice teachers who will work with young children ininclusive settings.

Results of the present study indicate that preser-vice teachers who are going to work with childrenfrom birth to 8 years old tend to have more favor-able attitudes toward inclusion than do those whoare preparing to work in elementary education set-tings. How to interpret the influence of major onpreservice teachers' attitudes is ambiguous because,in this study, preservice teachers in the unified ECEprogram were more likely to have taken courses re-lated to special education and teaching strategies thanthose majoring in elementary education. However,students' choices to major in early childhood edu-cation or in elementary education may be related totheir attitudes toward inclusion. It may be that pre-service teachers who plan to work with younger chil-dren are more favorable toward inclusion. Similarly,Thomas's (1985) investigation of inservice teachers'attitudes toward inclusion showed that elementaryteachers were more favorable toward inclusion thansecondary teachers. But, this contrasts with the find-ings of an earlier study, which found no relation be-tween inservice teachers' attitudes toward inclusionand grade level they taught (Larrivee & Cook, 1979).

However, this result supports the notion that preser-vice teachers who are working with younger childrenare more favorable toward inclusion.

Preservice teachers who have taken more coursesrelated to special education and adaptive teachingstrategies have more favorable attitudes toward per-sons with disabilities and inclusion. This finding isconsistent with previous studies demonstrating thatspecial education training was a significant predictorof attitudes toward persons with disabilities and inclu-sion for both preservice teachers (Sesow & Adams,1982) and inservice teachers (Center & Ward, 1987;Mulvihill et al., 2002).

Preservice teachers who have close relationshipswith persons who have disabilities also express morefavorable attitudes toward persons with disabilitiesand inclusion. Again, this finding is consistent withprevious studies demonstrating that personal relation-ship was a significant predictor of attitudes towardpersons with disabilities and inclusion for both pre-service teachers (Sesow & Adams, 1982) and inser-vice teachers (Center & Ward, 1987; Thomas, 1985).

In the current study, a close personal relationshipwith a person who has a disability and number ofcourses related to adaptive teaching strategies/specialeducation content were identified as personal expe-rience predictors. These findings complement thoseof Sesow and Adams (1982) who found that num-ber of special education classes and the number offriends and relatives who have disabilities were as-sociated with student teachers' degree of comfort inhaving children with disabilities in their classrooms,as well as their perceptions of their own preparednessfor working with children who have disabilities.

In the present study, experiences working withpersons who have disabilities did not influence pre-serivce teachers' attitudes toward persons with dis-abilities and inclusion. Similar findings were reportedin a study of student teachers (Avramidis et al., 2000;Sesow & Adams, 1982) and in some studies of inser-vice teachers (Mulvihill et al., 2002; Thomas, 1985).However, other studies of inservice teachers (Center& Ward, 1987; Stoiber et al., 1998) have found thatyears of teaching experience negatively influenced at-titudes toward inclusion. Larrivee and Cook (1979)found that when teachers perceived a high degree ofsuccess with children who have disabilities, their atti-tudes were more likely to be positive. Together, thesefindings suggest that positive perceptions of success-ful experiences working with children who have dis-abilities is more important than simply length or typeof such experiences. Further research to examine per-ceptions of experiences working with persons whohave disabilities may be necessary to provide more in-formation regarding how specific types of experiencesand students' perceptions of them influence their atti-

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tudes toward persons with disabilities and inclusion.However, it must be noted that overall the participantsin this study held quite high positive attitudes towardinclusion.

In this study, a relatively modest amount (7 and9%) of the variance of preservice teachers' attitudestoward inclusion was explained with their experiencevariables. However, 36% of the variance of attitudestoward inclusion was accounted for by their attitudestoward persons with disabilities; this finding is of sim-ilar magnitude to the variance explained (30.3%) by10 societal, institutional, and personal variables in astudy of inservice teachers' attitudes toward inclusion(Thomas, 1985). Thomas included teachers' person-ality traits and general conservatism, which were notexamined in this study. Thus, it may be important toexamine how preservice teachers' personality traitsand ratings of conservatism influence their attitudestoward inclusion in future studies.

This study did show that prediction of preserviceteachers' attitudes toward inclusion and of their at-titudes toward persons with disabilities are distinctthough they were correlated with each other. Con-structs of attitudes toward inclusion and toward per-sons with disabilities may be different. Attitudes to-ward persons who have disabilities may be more af-fective than those toward inclusion because a personalrelationship is more related to attitudes toward per-sons with disabilities than to those toward inclusion,and attitudes toward inclusion may be associated morestrongly with courses related to special education andteaching strategies. This suggests that further studiesto examine the constructs related to attitudes towardinclusion and persons with disabilities are necessary.

The current study found that attitudes toward per-sons with disabilities may be moderating the rela-tionship between preservice teachers' experiences andtheir attitudes toward inclusion. While we could notidentify a causal relationship between these two at-titude variables, preservice teachers' attitudes towardpersons with disabilities may be as important as thosetoward inclusion in promoting preservice teachers'effectiveness in inclusive classrooms.

7. Implications

The majority of teachers will be expected to in-struct children with disabilities at some point in time(Bricker, 1995). Teachers' attitudes toward inclusionare especially important in successful inclusion be-cause these attitudes may influence their teachingpractices. For example, preservice teachers' percep-tions of their instructional skills were related to theirattitudes towards inclusion (Avramidis et al., 2000).Other empirical research with inservice teachers has

verified positive relations between teachers' attitudestoward inclusion and persons with disabilities andtheir effective instructional practices (Bender et al.,1995; Schumm et al., 1994).

Outcomes of this study validate the need to in-clude extensive content related to special educationand teaching strategies across a variety of courses inall teacher education programs. In most institutions,this suggestion would be more effective and realisticthan simply adding more courses to address specialeducation content and adaptive teaching strategiesto teacher education programs, which often are al-ready quite filled with required courses. Providingmore opportunities for students to learn about specialeducation, inclusion, and teaching strategies withintheir current programs may also promote their con-fidence in working with children who have disabil-ities in inclusive settings. Center and Ward (1987)found that preservice teacher training programs thatincluded special education content were more ef-fective than inservice training programs in helpingteachers develop favorable attitudes toward inclusioneven though both training programs were related tofavorable attitudes toward inclusion.

The current study also supports the notion thatopportunities to develop close personal relationshipswith children or adults who have disabilities couldbe more effective in promoting their positive at-titudes toward children with disabilities and theirinclusion than simple one-time opportunities to workwith children who have disabilities. Following fromthis, class activities and practical assignments couldbe designed to include interviews of families andchildren with disabilities, assessment of individualchildren, and/or working with these families andchildren over a period of several weeks. These kindsof experiences are likely to provide opportunities todevelop expanded and one-on-one relationships.

In this study, the relationship between experi-ences working with persons who have disabilitiesand preservice teachers' attitudes toward personswith disabilities and inclusion was not significant. Itseems troubling that preservice teachers' experiencesworking with persons who have disabilities did notpromote their positive attitudes toward persons withdisabilities and inclusion. However, rather than con-cluding that this type of experience is not a relevantvariable for affecting preservice teachers' attitudes, itmay be more appropriate to consider whether simplyproviding a work experience for preservice teachers isinsufficient to produce the desired results. Preserviceteachers must have successful experiences workingwith children who have disabilities to develop positivefeelings for and gain confidence in working with chil-dren who have disabilities in inclusive settings. Thus,placing practicum students in high quality, inclusive

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H.J. Jeon, C.A. Peterson/Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 24 (2003) 171-179 179

programs, providing mentors, and including oppor-tunities for reflective thinking in practica may be im-portant. These and similar strategies allow students towork with teachers who are using effective inclusivestrategies, practice using these strategies themselves,and receive feedback on their performance.

Finally, educators in teacher education programsmust promote students' positive attitudes toward per-sons with disabilities, as well as attitude toward in-clusion. Both attitudes toward inclusion and personswith disabilities may be related to the later effective-ness of these teachers in inclusive classrooms.

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