Attitude of regular school teachers and academic performance of students with learning disabilities

Abstract

Integrating “Learning Disabled” students into regular school environment has become mandatory due to the changing global educational practice and systems adopted in most of the developed countries. The major challenges seen are the teacher’s attitude, adaptability, knowledge and efficiency in handling the students. The current study explored the teacher’s attitude towards Learning Disabled students, and how it affects their academic performances. A quantitative design was used to determine if there was any significant relationship in the teacher’s attitude and student performance level. The data’s were collected from 200 teachers of Grade 1 to 7, belonging to different schools in Abu Dhabi and Dubai emirates in UAE. The participants were asked to respond to 25 items of attitude scale which is a modified version of “Opinion Relative to Integration of Student with Disabilities” (Larivee, 1995). The data’s were analyzed by using the statistical technique such as‘t’ Test, one way ANOVA and Duncan test. The results also revealed that there was significant relationship between teachers attitude and students performance level. There was not much difference in the attitude of teachers from different age group, sex, educational qualification or experience. Teacher’s sincerity and dedication will help to enhance the student’s motivation and performance level, and this was considered to be very important for teachers handling the LD students.