Teacher's perception of inclusive education for students with special needs in elementary schools at Luang Prabang district, Luang Prabang province, Lao P.D.R.

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to explore teachers' perceptions of inclusive education for students with special needs in elementary schools and to compare teachers' perceptions of inclusive education based on their personal characteristics. 103 participant teachers who teach in elementary schools in Luang Prabang district, Luang Prabang province, Lao P.D.R involved in this study. Questionnaire was used to measure teachers' characteristics and perceptions in this study. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first part is teachers' personal characteristics including gender, age, educational qualification, professional qualification and teaching experience. The second part is to measure the teachers' perceptions of inclusive education for teaching students with special needs including classroom environment, curriculum, instruction, assistive technologies, and partnership. The findings of this study showed that the positive teachers' perception towards inclusive education for teaching students with special needs was slightly high in overall. The result of questionnaire data collection also showed the respectively of highest positive perception to the least positive perceptions by partnership, classroom environment, instruction, assistive technologies and curriculum. For the comparison of teachers' perception based on their personal characteristics, there was a statistically significant difference at .05 levels in age and teaching experience. The in-depth interview result illustrated throughout five aspects of teachers' perceptions of inclusive education for students with special needs that were described by thematic analysis such as "supported classroom environment by peers", "using national curriculum in educating students", "more extra teaching, teachers lack skill of information technologies in teaching" and "school communities were supported as the partnership". The research suggested that professional development for teaching students with special needs and adapting curriculum are needed to improve quality inclusive education in Luang Prabang, Lao P.D.R.