Impact of information and weekly contact on attitudes of korean general educators and nondisabled students regarding peers with disabilities

Abstract

Effects of written information and weekly special educator contact on general educators in Seoul, Korea was examined. Special educators prepared a weekly newsletter to educate teachers on how to include children with disabilities in their classrooms for part of the day. Participants were 30 general educators and 300 nondisabled peers of the students with disabilities. A pretest-posttest control group was used to assess teacher efficacy, attitudes of general educators toward inclusion, and peer acceptance of children with disabilities. We conducted ANCOVAS on posttest scores of three measures, considering pretest scores of each survey as the covariate. General educators in the information group showed significantly higher scores in teacher-efficacy and attitudes toward inclusion. Their nondisabled students showed significantly higher acceptance scores than did controls. © American Association on Mental Retardation.