Teachers Attitudes Toward Inclusion: Emphasis on the Collaboration Element

The inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom is common practice in American education, but most research has focused on instruction. Therefore, this mixed methods research approach with a concurrent triangulation strategy examined teachers attitudes toward inclusion and collaboration. A quantitative survey and open ended questions were used to determine if a difference of attitudes existed between general education and special education teachers, veteran teachers and those with less years of experience, and teachers with varying levels of education, toward inclusion and collaboration practices. The Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyze the data for the survey questions and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine any differences between the groups studied. Responses from the open ended questions were grouped by categories and descriptive statistics in the form of percentages were used to analyze the qualitative data. School administrators could utilize this information to create professional development programs. Teacher preparation programs in colleges can utilize the results to serve future teachers.