ATTITUDE OF TEACHERS TO STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS IN MAINSTREAMED PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA: THE NEED FOR A CHANGE

Abstract

The study investigated the attitude of regular and special teachers to students with special needs in mainstreamed public secondary schools in Southwestern Nigeria; it examined the qualifications of teachers teaching in mainstreamed public schools; and compared the academic performance of students with special needs in relation to regular students. It adopted descriptive survey design. Two research questions and three research hypotheses were answered in the study. The population for this study comprised 2,701 teachers in the 35 public secondary schools where mainstreaming of students with special needs is being implemented in Southwestern Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 10 out of the 35 mainstreamed public secondary schools. From the selected schools, 200 teachers were involved in the study. The teachers were selected through stratified sampling technique using sex and class as strata. Two research instruments were used for data collection. The data were analyzed using simple percentages and t-test analysis. The results showed that 78.8% teachers had positive attitude to students with special needs. 16.8% teachers had negative attitude to students with special needs, while 6.4% teachers had neutral attitude to students with special needs. Also, there was no significant difference between the attitude of male and female teachers to students with special needs (t=.45, p>0.05). However, there was a significant difference between the attitude of special teachers and regular teachers to students with special needs (t=.91, p<0.05). There was also a significant difference between the academic performance of regular students and students with special needs (t=6.38 p<0.05). The study concluded that positive attitude of teachers to students with special needs would increase self-perception and academic performance of students with special needs. Thus, teachers’ attitudes undoubtedly had a great influence on the school achievement and social behaviours’ of the special needs children