Paper Title
The Teachers’ Needs of Inclusive Education Management of Students With Special Needs in Central Region Inclusive Schools in Thailand
Abstract
Inclusive education is a central step of education management in the new millennium: it, allow every child to learn, which is a human right. The one of the essential components for capacity building in inclusive education is a teacher. Developing a teacher to support an inclusive education management must be considered their needs. The purpose of this study were to: 1) Study the level of teachers’ needs of inclusive education management of students with special needs, and 2) Compare teachers’ needs of inclusive education management of students with special needs classifieds by personal characteristics. The participants were 164 teachers who are teaching in an inclusive classroom. The data were collected by questionnaires consist of personal characteristics and the teachers’ needs, that were constructed by the researcher. The content validity was Item-Objective Congruence index (IOC) of between 0.67 – 1.00, and the reliability of the questionnaires was the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.894 respectively. The statistics used for the data analysis of the personal characteristics and the needs were frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The data analyses of the comparison were t-test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA).
The results of the research were as follows:
1. The overall of the teachers’ need of inclusive education management of students with special needs was the most needed level (Mean=4.27, SD.=0.67). While considering the part of learning methods’ needs was the most needed level (Mean=4.20, SD.=0.70) and the part of contents’ needs was the most needed level (Mean=4.24, SD.=0.76).
2. The comparative results suggest that the teachers’ needs of teaching students with special needs in terms of gender affecting learning methods’ needs were significantly different at .05 levels. And, In term of teaching experience affecting learning methods’ needs and contents’ needs were significantly different at .05 levels. The results of this study can be applied to planning for improving the teacher for teaching students with special needs, and enhancing inclusive education management for diversity students into independent living in an inclusive society.
Key words: Students with Special Needs, Inclusive Schools, Inclusive Education Management