A School-Level Investigation of Predictions of Attitudes About Mainstreaming

Abstract

A group of special education resource teachers (n = 25) were paired with regular educators (n = 25) who worked in the same school building. Regular educators were asked to respond to an opinionnaire designed to obtain their perceptions of six factors associated with the mainstreaming process. Special educators were asked to attempt to predict the responses of regular education colleagues to this opinionnaire. Results indicated that special educator predictions were not significantly different from regular educator responses on five of the six factors. Significant differences were obtained, however, on one factor : willingness to teach the handicapped. Implications for special education resource room and consultation programs and for further research are discussed.