Date of Award

Spring 8-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Randy T. Busse, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Michael Hass, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Pedro Olvera, Psy.D.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to extend Sugita and Busse’s (2015, 2016) work on the Scale of Teachers’ Attitudes towards Inclusive Classrooms (STATIC) to school psychologists. This study sought to answer the following research questions: (1) What is the potential factor structure of the STAITC with a sample of school psychologists?; (2) What is the internal consistency of the STATIC when used with school psychologists?; and (3) Are there differences between school psychologists and teachers in relation to attitudes toward inclusive education?

An expert panel was utilized to create an adapted version of the STATIC for school psychologists. Responses from California-based school psychologists (N = 76) were analyzed through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with varimax rotation. The EFA resulted in a 4-factor structure accounting for 53.22% of the variance. The newly adapted scale was deemed the Scale of School Psychologists’ Attitudes Towards Inclusive Classrooms (SSPATIC) and revealed good internal consistency, for both alpha (α = .81) and omega (ω = .81) coefficients. The measure also demonstrated good test-retest reliability (r = .86) and a dependent t-test was non-significant, indicating mean group temporal stability (t = -.599, p = .557). Implications for practice, strengths and limitations of the study, along with future directions were discussed.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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