Attitudes towards both Students with Special Needs and Inclusive Education among Regular and Special Education Teachers: The Differences and Causes

Given that attitudes play an important role in teaching and learning, it is of the utmost importance to look into teachers’ attitude towards students, especially those with special needs, and detect any differences between regular and special education teachers. To this end, a sample of 107 special education teachers’ attitude towards such students was compared to that of the same number of regular teachers in Zanjan and Bijar. Both groups consisted of those teachers who were accessible. The instrument used to measure the attitudes was of adequate validity and reliability. Data analyses show that special education teachers have a meaningfully more positive attitude towards students with special needs. Furthermore, in both groups about 10% of the variance in attitude scores is explained by the three predictors of previous experience as an intermediary and combinatory teacher, major field of study, and whether gone through in service training. Teacher knowledge of students with special needs and inclusive education explained 7.4% of the variance in order to improve their attitudes.