EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS' ROLE IN INCLUSIVE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN WITH PHYSICAL
DISABILITIES IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
Context:
For inclusive programs to be implemented
there must be positive attitudes among
teachers (Allen and Cowdery, 2014). There
is widespread agreement among general
education preschool instructors that
including both disabled and non-disabled
children are in the children's best interests.
Thus, teachers are more inclined to endorse
the concept of inclusion, notably when few
pedagogical modifications are necessary,
even if they have limited self-reported
experience teaching students with
disabilities ( Zagona et al., 2017).
Literatures on inclusive education for
children with physical disabilities will be
utilised for this qualitative phenomenological
inquiry.
Due to the researcher's limited funds,
participants from Nigeria will be contacted
via Teams.
Research Questions:
In order to investigate the role of teachers in
incorporating children with physical
disabilities in normal classrooms, the
following questions will be addressed:
I. What is the awareness and perspective
of teachers in Kaduna State, Nigeria,
about physical disabilitiesS and
inclusive education?
II. Are there standard strategies employed
by early childhood teachers to foster
inclusive education in Kaduna state,
Nigeria?
III. How do the awareness and practices of
teachers about inclusive education
influence the development of children
with disabilities?
Approach:
After considering numerous assumptions of the
research methodologies, a qualitative empirical
paradigm will be adopted for this study. The
reason for adopting this method is because
qualitative research methods are useful for
offering comprehensive description of
complicated phenomena (Rapley, 2018). and
bringing attention to individuals whose opinions
are rarely heard (Russo et al., 2018).
Thus, a phenomenological qualitative approach
(using interpretivism to analyse the data) will be
employed rather than a quantitative one, so as
to see what participants (in this case, early
childhood educators in Kaduna State) have
expressed about their responsibilities and views.
Methods:
This study will involve the use of Teams for the
interviews. Although, the study would have
employed a face-to-face approach, but such will
be impossible due to financial constraints and
the distance from United Kingdom to Nigeria.
This offers the possibility of explaining the intent
of the research personally. Moreover, it will be
possible to add explanatory comments and ask
additional questions for increased clarification.
This study is sparse in Nigeria. According to
Creswell and Clark (2004), when initiating a
sparse research projects, interviews have been
recommended as one of the suitable data
collection tools in the literature .
Strategy:
The reason for investigating the roles of teachers in
inclusive education is because; early childhood
teachers are the most important since they are often
the first professionals whom a young person who does
not know they have a disability will come in contact
with; therefore, their understanding of disabilities is
crucial for the young person's educational success.
Thus. qualitative interview will be used to collect
phenomenological data from the ECE teachers
because it aids in articulating participant's life
experiences (Converse, 2012). The reason for using
qualitative interview is because Interpretivism
paradigm is frequently related with phenomenological
studies (Ryan, 2018). One vital reason for using a
qualitative approach is because it is significant for
special education studies since it requires a more
comprehensive examination of the problem to inform
policy and practice (Rumrill Jr et al., 2020).
Sampling strategy:
Since the methodology of research adopts an
interpretivism research paradigm (qualitative
research), the knowledge about the population of
interest (early years teachers in Kaduna State) is
known. As such, the assertion of Berndt, (2020), that
qualitative research questions are limited to non-
probability sampling methods also informed the
researcher that the purposive non-probability sampling
will be used. Thus, six (6) participants ( known ECE
teachers in Kaduna) will be chosen for this study.
References:
Allen, E. K., & Cowdery, G. E. (2014). The
exceptional child: Inclusion in early childhood
education. Cengage learning.
Berndt, A. E. (2020). Sampling methods. Journal
of Human Lactation, 36(2), 224-226
Converse, M. (2012). Philosophy of
phenomenology: How understanding aids