Attitude and perception of teachers towards inclusion of children with hearing impairment in mainstream schools in Karnataka, India

In most developed nations, there is a general trend of enrolling hearing-impaired children with special education needs in regular schools. Inclusive education refers to children with special education needs becoming part of a mainstream school like typically developing peers. A good method for evaluating the success of such programs is to assess teachers' attitudes towards inclusion. The inclusive education approach may be challenging to implement across all educational setups due to the lack of academic resources, expertise, and training towards inclusive education. This study explored teachers' attitudes and perceptions towards the inclusion of children with hearing impairment in regular schools in Karnataka state. A tool named 'Teachers Attitude Questionnaire' which was developed by Galis and Tanner was used to study the attitudes and perceptions of school teachers. The tool was then revised by considering geographic and cultural differences and was administered to 421 teachers across Karnataka. Analysis revealed a higher score in all the 4 domains of inclusive education which shows that most teachers had a positive attitude towards inclusive education. Results about teachers' attitudes towards inclusive education based on work experience, type of school, gender, medium of instruction, and level of teaching were statistically significant, p < 0.05. This study concludes that teachers' attitudes varied concerning the level of experience and level of teaching. The results of the current study also stress the need for awareness programs to bring more positive attitudes among teachers, to successfully implement inclusive education.