Engelliler Konusunda Verilen Eğitim Programının Engellilere Yönelik Tutumlar Üzerindeki Etkisi

Problem Statement: The number of students with special needs who are educated in inclusive settings are increasing. To success of inclusion mostly depends on the teacher’s attitudes. Although some various researches determining the teachers’ attitudes toward individuals with disabilities were conducted in Turkey, the vast majority of them showed that teachers had negative attitudes who work with children with special needs (Batu, 1997; Diken & Sucuoğlu, 1999; Diken, 1998; Gözün & Yıkmış, 2003; Kayaoğlu, 1999; Metin & Çakmak, 1998; Orel, Zerey & Töret, 2004; Şahbaz, 1997; Uysal, 2003; Yıkmış & Kayaoğlu, 1999; Yıkmış, Şahbaz & Peker, 1997, 1998). Additionally, not only in Turkey but also in the other countries which adopt inclusion in educating the children with disabilities have the same portrait regarding to attitutudes of the experts and teachers working with children with special needs. According to the literature, it was indicated that generally teachers who have limited knowledge about the characteristics of individuals with special needs and limited experience about how they have to modify the instruction regarding to their characteristic features have negative attitudes toward them (Avramidis & Norwich, 2002; Avramidis, Bayliss & Burden, 2000; Bain, 2005; Brandon & Ncube 2006; Bigham, 2010; Boling, 2007; Bondurant, 2004; Campbell, & etc., 2003; Fakolade, & etc., 2009; Familia-Garcia, 2001; Idol, 2006; Kim, 2009; McLeskey & Waldron, 2002; Molto, 2003; Morberg & Savolainen, 2003; Mousouli & etc., 2009; Olson, 2003; Reusen, Shoho & Barker, 2001; Shade & Stewart, 2001; Smith & Smith, 2000; Villa & Thousand, 2003; Voltz, Brazil & Ford, 2001; Wischnowski, Salmon & Eaton, 2004; Yoon-Suk, 2010; Zambelli & Bonni, 2004). Although there are some research studies (Batu, 1997; Diken & Sucuoğlu, 1999; Diken, 1998; Gözün & Yıkmış, 2003; Kayaoğlu, 1999; Metin & Çakmak, 1998; Orel, etc., 2004; Uysal, 2003) related to determine the attitudes of experts\teachers toward people with disabilities conducted in Turkey, the research that suggests practical programs and implications which has positivie effects on attitudes toward people with disabilities is very limited and there is a need to increase the number of these studies. For this necessity, the problem of this study was to investigate the effects of a special education training program on university students’ attitudes toward people with disabilities. Method(s): Participants were 56 first grade students from Child Development Department, Namık Kemal University. In the present study, a pre and post test procedure was applied and in both pre and post test evaluations OYTO (2009) which was developed in a national project (Kaner, Öğülmüş, Büyüköztürk and Dökmen, 2009) and aims to determine the attitudes of individuals toward people with disabilities, was used in order to collect data. OYTO composed of 43 items under six independent factors is based on a scale of 1 to 5, and the responses vary between “1-least” and “5- most”. The Cronbach-Alpha internal consistency of sub-factors were calculated and according to Cronbach scores; in the present study four subfactors of OYTO which showed acceptable reliability scores were decided to use for evaluating the attitudes of participants toward people with disabilities. This study was conducted in three steps. In the first step, OYTO was applied to all participants to assess their attitudes toward people with disabilities before the presentations started. In the second step, training program lasting for 12 weeks (52 hours in total) was presented to participants weekly. Then, as a third step of this study, OYTO was applied to all participants again to determine the effectiveness of the training program on their attitudes toward people with disabilities. All the gathered data in pre and post test sections was transformed as a SPSS file and analyzed by using Dependent and Independent Sample T-tests, Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon Signed Ranked Test in SPSS.18. Results: In order to test the effectiveness of the special education training program, we analyzed the data in two steps; (a) we evaluated the participants’ attitudes toward people with disabilities before the presentations started in terms of their graduation and special education knowledge and experience (b) we determined the effectiveness of the training program on the participants’ attitudes toward people with disabilities. Results indicated that although there was not a significant difference between the participants’ attitudes toward people with disabilities in terms of their graduation and special education knowledge and experience in the pre-test assessment, a significant improvement in their attitudes toward people with disabilities was seen in favor of their post test scores (both whole scale and its sub-factors). The results also suggested that the presented special education training program had a positive impact on their attitudes toward people with disabilities. Conclusions and Recommendations: Data showed that special education training program had a positive effect on attitudes of the participants toward