My Thinking About Inclusion – Teacher’s Scale [MTAI-28]

Brief Description

The My Thinking About Inclusion – Teacher’s Scale (MTAI-28) is a psychometric instrument designed to assess teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward the inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream education.

The scale consists of 28 statements, which teachers rate using a 5-point Likert scale:

1 = Strongly agree
2 = Agree
3 = Neither agree nor disagree
4 = Disagree
5 = Strongly disagree

The instrument assesses three main dimensions related to inclusive education:

Core Perspectives on Inclusion: teachers’ general beliefs regarding the philosophy, value, and appropriateness of inclusion.

Expected Outcomes: teachers’ expectations regarding the potential effects and consequences of inclusion for students and the educational environment.

Classroom Practices: beliefs and practices associated with implementing inclusion in everyday teaching.

Aim

The primary aim of the MTAI-28 is to investigate teachers’ perceptions of the inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream schools.

More specifically, the scale seeks to examine teachers’ fundamental beliefs about inclusion, their expectations regarding its outcomes, and the practices they consider appropriate or apply in everyday classroom settings.

Assessing these dimensions can contribute to a better understanding of the factors that may facilitate or hinder the implementation of inclusive educational practices.

Development and Greek Adaptation

The development of the instrument was based on the work of K. C. Stoiber, M. Gettinger, and D. Goetz, while its adaptation into Greek was associated with the work of E. Kalyva and E. Avramidis.

The Greek version was examined in a sample of 155 primary school teachers from Northern Greece, including 75 men and 80 women. The participants had a mean age of approximately 40 years and 6 months.

The use of the scale in a Greek educational population allows the investigation of inclusion-related attitudes within the relevant educational and cultural context.

Scoring

The 28 items are rated on the 5-point Likert scale described above, producing a possible total score ranging from 28 to 140.

The items are distributed across the three subscales as follows:

Core Perspectives on Inclusion: items 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 14, 15, 23, and 24.

Expected Outcomes: items 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 26.

Classroom Practices: items 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27, and 28.

When interpreting scores, the direction of item scoring should be taken into account, following the scoring instructions of the specific version of the instrument.

Reliability and Validity

The psychometric evaluation of the Greek version supports the use of the MTAI-28 for examining teachers’ perceptions of inclusion.

Content validity was supported, among other indicators, by the correlation between two related inclusion questions, reported as r = 0.61.

Internal consistency, assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, ranged from 0.65 to 0.87 across the individual subscales, while the value reported for the overall scale was α = 0.87.

Factor analysis was also used to investigate the internal structure of the scale and the differentiation of its three dimensions.

Applications

The MTAI-28 may be used in educational and research settings to investigate teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education.

It can be applied in studies examining associations between inclusion-related beliefs and factors such as teaching experience, professional training, professional development, and previous experience working with students with special educational needs.

The findings may also contribute to identifying professional development needs and designing training programs aimed at strengthening positive attitudes and effective inclusive practices.

References

Avramidis, E., & Kalyva, E. (2004). The influence of teaching experience and professional training on Greek primary teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion. Conference presentation at The European Dimension of Special Education.

Avramidis, E. (2002). Analysis of an alternative reading reality. Thessaloniki: Ministry of Education.

Avramidis, E., & Kalyva, E. (2007). The influence of teaching experience and professional development on Greek teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 22, 367–389.

Kalyva, E., Gojkovic, D., & Tsakiris, V. (2007). Serbian teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion. International Journal of Special Education, 22, 30–35.

Stoiber, K. C., Gettinger, M., & Goetz, D. (1998). Exploring factors influencing parents’ and early childhood practitioners’ beliefs about inclusion. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 13, 107–124.