Social inclusion through attitudinal change in Singaporean teachers

Abstract

The development of positive teacher attitudes towards students with disabilities is a catalyst for their social inclusion. It is therefore important that the foundations for positive teacher attitudes be laid in pre-service teacher education programmes. This article reports a pilot study that investigated the impact of a disability awareness course on the attitudes of mainstream pre-service teachers in Singapore toward disability and inclusion. A researcher constructed survey was developed to enable the pre-service teachers to report their perspectives of the changes in their awareness and attitudes at the end of the course. The results indicated that the course had a positive impact on the pre-service teachers’ knowledge, awareness and attitude towards disability and inclusion. The pre-service teachers reported greater consciousness of their own prejudices and misconceptions about people with disabilities and more positive perspectives of people with disabilities in terms of their capabilities and capacity to learn at the end of the course. They also expressed an increased realization of the difference they could make in the lives of people with disabilities, their personal agency in creating a more inclusive society as well as greater openness towards inclusion and acceptance of students with disabilities into their own classrooms.

Introduction

In August 2004, in his inauguration speech as Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong proclaimed the envisioning of Singapore as an inclusive society. He shared his vision of a ‘government that will be open and inclusive in its approach, towards all Singaporeans, young and old, disabled and able-bodied…’ and exhorted his fellow citizens to ‘have a place in our hearts and lives for the disabled’ (Ibrahim 2004). A month later, he called for greater efforts to integrate people with disabilities into mainstream society, beginning with the integration of students with disabilities into mainstream schools (Teo 2004).

The year 2004 has been described as the watershed year for the fields of special needs education and disability in Singapore (Lim and Thaver 2018) as it witnessed the birth of a new era for unprecedented national attention and progressive changes in these fields and across society, which has continued unabated till the present. Prior to August 2004, special needs education was largely identified and associated with the special education system comprising of social service agencies (formerly known as voluntary welfare organizations) charged with the operation of special education schools and adult disability services. A dual system of education was clearly in place with students without and with disabilities seen as belonging to the mainstream and special education systems respectively (Lim and Nam 2000). A socio-historical legacy of this dual system of education is that many Singaporeans have grown up with little or no personal relational knowledge and practical lived experience with their fellow Singaporeans with disabilities, (Lim and Thaver 2018; Lim, Thaver, and Slee 2008).

Over the past twenty years since Mr Lee’s envisioning of Singapore as an inclusive society and the call to better integrate students with disabilities within mainstream education, there has been a slew of national initiatives and evolving developments to support and include children, youth and adults with disabilities within mainstream education and society (Lim, Poon, and Thaver 2022; Lim and Thaver 2023). At the national societal level, the most comprehensive series of national roadmaps to have ever been developed for persons with disabilities was launched in 2007. Known as Enabling Masterplans, these 5-year national roadmaps offer a life-course approach to create an inclusive society where persons with disabilities can be supported and empowered to maximize their potential and be embraced as equal citizens. With the expansion of personnel and infrastructural support for students with disabilities over the past two decades, the number of students with disabilities within educational settings in Singapore appear to have dramatically increased, from 2500 students in 2005 (Chan 2005) to 13,000 in 2013, 24,000 in 2018 (Toh 2018), 25,600 in 2019 (Choo 2019) and 35,500 in 2023 (Elangovan 2023). Currently, about 80% of all students with disabilities are educated in mainstream schools while the remaining students (with higher support needs) attend government-funded special education schools (Elangovan 2023).

As a member of the United Nations, Singapore supports the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which includes SDG4 (for education) that aims to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ (United Nations 2015). Singapore signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2012 and ratified it in 2013 (Ministry of Social and Family Development 2016). Singapore’s ratification of the UNCRPD highlights its commitment to ensuring its citizens with disabilities have the same human rights as every other citizen. This ratification also means that Singapore will assume responsibility for securing and protecting the interests of persons with disabilities as in articles stipulated by the UNCRPD document. In ratifying the UNCRPD, which includes Article 24 on Education, Singapore will need to make progressive realizations towards ensuring its education system is inclusive. A key conduit to achieving this goal is through teacher education by addressing the beliefs and attitudes of teachers towards persons with disabilities and their inclusion.

Literature review

The prospects for the social inclusion or exclusion of persons with disabilities within any society or community are strongly influenced by attitudes held by its members towards these individuals. Attitude, in this study, is defined as ‘a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour’ (Eagly and Chaiken 2005, p. 745), which can be inferred from and has an influence on beliefs, affect (feelings) and behaviour. It is perceived to be the product of a particular context; the result of a combination of long term socialization and short term exposure to new information in the environment (Albarracin et al. 2005; Antonak and Livneh 2000).

In the field of teacher education, a sizeable body of research conducted on teacher attitudes towards disability and inclusion appears to indicate that the success of implementing inclusion is dependent on the attitudes and beliefs of teachers (e.g. Avramidis, Bayliss, and Burden 2000; Lalvani 2013; Priyanti 2022; Scruggs and Mastropieri, 1996). A positive teacher attitude is therefore seen as a catalyst for inclusion and inclusive practices (Avramidis and Norwich 2002; Damianidou and Phtiaka 2018; Loreman 2007).

Teachers with positive attitudes towards the inclusion of students with disabilities can serve as role models for their students with and without disabilities, and exert positive influences on the social-emotional school experiences of both groups of students in inclusive education (Heyder, Südkamp, and Steinmayr 2020). On the contrary, indifferent or negative attitudes on the part of teachers can have damaging repercussions on students with and without disabilities. For students with disabilities, the consequences of being the brunt of such attitudes have been found to manifest in feelings of alienation, psycho-social distress and a deepening sense of being ‘lesser’ because of their disability (Hogan, McLellan, and Bauman 2000; McDougall et al. 2004; Tregaskis 2000).

Research (e.g. De Boer, Pijl, and Minnaert 2011; Kuyini, Desai, and Sharma 2020; Opoku et al. 2021; Parey 2023; Rakap and Kaczmarek 2010; Saloviita 2022) continues to indicate that both pre-service and teachers in service have reservations about the inclusion of students with disabilities in mainstream settings with some expressing views that students with disabilities are better provided for in segregated or special education settings (Damianidou and Phtiaka 2018; Lalvani 2013; Parey 2023). It is our contention that in countries, such as Singapore, where there remains a strong historical tradition of educating students with disabilities in special education school settings that are apart from mainstream education and where mainstream teachers have grown up and become accustomed to such a dual system of education, that teacher attitudes towards and their reservations about the inclusion of these students can be a deterrent instead of a catalyst to their social inclusion.

In the fostering of more positive attitudes towards people with disabilities and inclusion, extant literature does seem to indicate that teacher education or preparation programmes at the pre-service level can play a significant role in shifting attitudes (e.g. Campbell, Gilmore, and Cuskelly 2003; Cameron 2017; Carew et al. 2019; Killoran, Woronko, and Zaretsky 2014; Lautenbach and Heyder 2019; Priyanti 2022; Uka 2025). There is also evidence of positive correlation between teacher attitudes and the use of inclusive classroom practices (e.g. Sharma and Sokal 2016). When teachers develop more positive attitudes towards students with disabilities and their inclusion within school communities, the social capital of these communities in valuing and promoting their social inclusion increases (Damianidou and Phtiaka 2018; Simplican et al. 2015).

In the light of the above, a key question that needs to be explored in the development of teacher education courses is what specific types of strategies, pedagogies or approaches can lead to the development of positive attitudes towards inclusion and people with disabilities. A review of the body of research studies reveals a predominant focus on information-based cognitive interventions or practical field experience or a combination of both (Lautenbach and Heyder 2019). There has been few studies, thus far, that explicitly mention the adoption of a disability awareness approach in their pre-service teacher preparation courses which involves the critically reflexive dimension of interrogating one’s situatedness within sociocultural and sociohistorical contextual conditions to better understand one’s position and hence one’s attitude toward disability and inclusion.

The limited use of this pedagogical approach – towards adopting a critically reflexive stance of deconstructing one’s position towards disability and inclusion as situated within one’s sociocultural context – in the literature on teacher preparation courses for attitudinal change in teachers, can be ascribed to the insufficient foregrounding of inclusive education within larger sociocultural and historical contexts (Kozleski, Artiles, and Waitoller 2011; Lim and Thaver 2022). Although social inclusion is situated within larger societal contexts with their own unique sociocultural conditions and historical legacies, these contextual influences have been under-theorized, under-estimated and even ignored (Lim, Thaver, and Strogilos 2019). The use of a disability awareness approach can facilitate pre-service teachers towards greater awareness and critical reflexivity of their own attitudes towards disability and inclusion in terms of understanding their own attitudes as shaped by their social contexts and their roles in possibly perpetuating or reproducing social exclusion (e.g. Bentley-Williams and Morgan 2013; Evans 2002; Killoran, Woronko, and Zaretsky 2014; Lalvani 2013; Mullen 2001; Priyanti 2022; Rice 2006).

In addition, a consistent gap noted in systematic reviews of studies through the decades on changing attitudes towards disability and inclusion and prejudice reduction (Donaldson 1980; Paluck and Green 2009; Lautenbach and Heyder 2019) has been the fact that few of the studies reviewed had been grounded on theoretical models of attitude change leading to the difficulty in drawing conclusions and generalisations as to what motivated attitudinal change or conversely not.

Another limitation in the current literature base on teacher education for attitudinal change is that most of the studies had been conducted in Western countries with a majority from Australia and the USA where forms and practices of inclusion and exclusion may differ from other countries, thereby limiting their generalizability to other cultural contexts or educational systems. In a literature review of professional development of teachers for inclusive education, Waitoller and Artiles (2013) recommended for teacher education to facilitate teachers to examine and understand their locally situated forms of exclusion within their own community and societal contexts and how they can affect opportunities and prospects for social inclusion.

In the light of the above, this study seeks to examine the impact of a disability awareness course on fostering more positive attitudes towards disability and inclusion in pre-service teachers in Singapore. The next section describes the theoretical underpinnings of the course and its components.

Description of disability awareness course

Key elements and principles from the cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger 1957), that of personal choice, introduction of information and use of activities that would require the pre-service teachers to examine their beliefs about disability, active engagement, examination of aversive consequences on others as well as the facilitation of personal responsibility and agency, were used to shape the design of the course.

In the light of the fact that the course designed would be a compulsory one in the pre-service teacher programme and that they were adult learners, it was important that the posture adopted by the course lecturers/tutors in the course be ‘invitational’, more facilitative and take into account the funds of knowledge and experiences the pre-service teachers would bring into the course (Knowles 1984). It had to be clear to the pre-service teachers that the position and pedagogy they ultimately adopted toward people with disabilities and inclusion were of their own choice.

It was also felt that to change entrenched societal attitudes towards disability, the course had to create awareness of negative consequences of certain policies and practices on the lives of people with disabilities, and a sense of personal responsibility through understanding that every member of society either directly or indirectly contributed towards these consequences. In his seminal work on the functions of attitudes, Katz (1960) had also suggested that in order to modify attitudes, there was a need not only to address the knowledge function of attitudes but also the value-expressive function where new information could act to create a sense of dissatisfaction with self and lead individuals to see the appropriateness of the new attitude.

To disrupt the pre-service teachers’ current understandings of disability, the method of ‘deconstruction’, a concept developed by Danforth and Rhodes (1997) based on the work of Derrida (1976, 1979) was adapted for use in the course. Deconstruction is ‘an aggressive political mode of critical analysis that strips conventional and assumed truths down to their logically insubstantial bare bones’ (Danforth and Rhodes 1997, p. 358). This method would allow beliefs, values and assumptions regarding disability and inclusion to be unearthed and examined by the pre-service teachers through their own efforts. This was done through first positioning the pre-service teachers for learning about disabilities by inviting them into a critical dialogue of how they had been socialised into discourses about disability. They were asked to reflect upon and deconstruct their personal beliefs, assumptions and feelings about disability and how these had influenced their attitudes towards people with disabilities. They were then led to examine attitudes and practices in Singapore society that could have contributed to the exclusion and marginalization of people with disabilities.

It was crucial for the pre-service teachers to ‘restory’ their ideas or notions about disability and reconstruct their own ideological positions before being guided to consider how they might develop more inclusive personal pedagogies. It was postulated that until the pre-service teachers reduced the dissonance arising from the deconstruction process by acknowledging the realities of the inequities and attitudinal barriers experienced by people with disabilities, the resultant consequences and arrived at a position of greater openness towards people with disabilities, there would be resistance to the idea of inclusion.

To encourage deep processing of the information, engagement and personal involvement, opportunities were created for the pre-service teachers to engage in dialogue with their peers and tutors on the content presented in the lectures and required readings as well as participate in tutorial activities that sought to deepen their understanding. The pre-service teachers were also guided into adopting a reflective and reflexive pose throughout the course to aid the internalization of their understandings and experiences in the course. Careful attention was paid to make sure that the pre-service teachers were scaffolded, not just through the support of their tutors and the activities prepared but also in the choice of the reading materials and types of media shown so that difficulty in processing or understanding the information presented would not affect their learning (Vygotsky 1978) or cause them to reduce their dissonance by disregarding the information. The role of media had been highlighted in the study of Happer and Philo (2013) as being an important factor in influencing beliefs and contributing to the acceptance or rejection of currently held attitudes.

The pre-service teachers were also given the opportunity in groups to interact with the community through a structured fieldwork project to examine for themselves the discourse on disability in the community (e.g. institutions, service providers, parents with children with disabilities, special school educators, members of the public) and present to their peers their perspectives of the prospects for inclusion of people with disabilities in Singapore mainstream society based on their findings. This project was designed to allow the pre-service teachers to examine how disability and the inclusion of people with disabilities were regarded by Singapore society, and to arrive at their own conclusions of the current state of inclusion and subsequent implications for the lives of people with disabilities.

A final element that was considered in the design of the course was that of source credibility. A large body of research indicated that when knowledge sources were considered highly credible by the message recipients, there was an increased possibility of attitudinal change in the re-evaluation of beliefs held in the face of new information (e.g. Hovland, Janis, and Kelley 1953; Maddux and Rogers 1980; McGuire 1985; Petty and Wegener 1998). It was also found in studies examining trustworthiness that a message had greater persuasiveness when the source advocated a position perceived as contrary to his or her personal interests (Eagly, Wood, and Chaiken 1978).

In view of this, two local voices from the community sharing their stories through videos were included. One was a young Singaporean adult with an intellectual disability, who had been given the opportunity to fulfil her dream of becoming a teacher assistant in a kindergarten, sharing her thoughts of how to provide for students with disabilities as well as her hopes and dreams. The other was an experienced mainstream primary school teacher who had worked with a number of students with disabilities. She shared her personal experiences of how she coped with the challenges of working with students with special needs in a mainstream setting, what kept her motivated and the strategies she used with these students. Aside from these, other videos of people with disabilities and inclusion experiences were shown in the course with this common element – they were ordinary yet inspirational real-life stories to challenge the pre-service teachers’ mindsets and convey the belief that with support, people with disabilities could achieve more than what society expected of them.

Method

The following research question was examined in the study:

What were the self-reported perspectives of mainstream pre-service teachers of the effect of a disability awareness course on their awareness and attitude toward disability and inclusion?

Participants

The participants were drawn from the cohort of mainstream pre-service teachers in their first semester of their teacher preparation programme at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore. The participants came from three programmes of study, the Postgraduate Diploma in Education Programme, Primary (PGDE Pri), Postgraduate Diploma in Education Programme, Secondary (PGDE Sec) and the Diploma in Education Programme (Dip. Ed.). The pre-service teachers in the PGDE Primary and PGDE Secondary programmes were graduates from different disciplines of study while those in the Dip. Ed. programme would generally not possess degrees.

The sampling procedure employed was purposive by virtue of the fact that it was a requirement for these mainstream pre-service teachers to read the disability awareness course as designed for the pilot study in their first semester of study in NIE. The pre-service teachers took the researcher-constructed survey on the last day of their course. This was administered by the tutors of the course without the presence of the researchers. The purpose of the survey was described and consent obtained verbally. Participation was voluntary, and the participants were assured of complete anonymity as no demographic information or identifiers were collected. Of the 1878 pre-service teachers who took the course, 1769 volunteered to participate in the study. Of the surveys received, only 1625 (91.9%) were finally used in the analysis as the criterion was that there should be no missing values in the final data set.

Design of the study

The interpretive or interpretivist paradigm was used to guide the design of the study for two reasons. Firstly, this paradigm subscribes to the belief that ‘there is no particular right or correct path to knowledge, no special methodology that automatically leads to intellectual progress’ (Smith, 1993; cited in Willis 2007, p.109), hence permitting the researcher flexibility of type of methodology, whether quantitative or qualitative, to explore the phenomenon. Secondly, it sees reality and knowledge of this reality as socially constructed, arrived at through group consensus and influenced by a particular social, cultural and historical context (Creswell 2003; Mertens 2005).

The study employed a quantitative approach using a research design which was an adaptation of two designs, the quasi-experimental design of recollection proxy-pretest (Trochim and Donnelly 2007) and the one-group pretest-posttest design (Shadish, Cook, and Campbell 2002), referred to as the ‘one-group recollection proxy-pretest posttest’ design in this study. In this adapted design, rather than an actual pre-test and post-test before and after the course, the impact of the course was evaluated at the end of the course through a recollection proxy-pretest where the pre-service teachers were asked to report their awareness and attitudes towards disability and inclusion before and at the end of the disability awareness course at the point of the posttest.

The choice of this design was made because it stayed true to the interpretive paradigm by explicitly inviting judgements of any perceived change in awareness, knowledge and attitude to be made by the pre-service teachers themselves. The overall findings represent the collective reality of the pre-service teachers in terms of their own perceived changes in knowledge, beliefs, feelings and future behaviour towards people with disabilities and inclusion. It was also felt that a researcher-constructed instrument which specifically asked the pre-service teachers to assess their own change in awareness and attitudes as directly related to the course would be a more valid measure than a general attitudinal survey, and more in keeping with the interpretive paradigm used in the study where reality and knowledge of this reality is seen as socially constructed by the individual or group. This could also address the issue of response-shift bias associated with the use of traditional pretest-posttest designs (Cantrell 2003; Howard et al. 1981; Miller and Hinshaw 2012).

Data analysis

Statistical analysis of the data was carried out using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise, organize and describe the data obtained. Other statistical procedures used in the study were:

• paired-samples t-tests to assess the impact of the disability awareness course on the awareness of and attitude towards disability and inclusion of the pre-service teachers.

• reliability coefficient alphas to find the internal consistency of the instrument used in the study.

• exploratory factor analyses to determine the factor structure of the researcher-constructed instrument used to assess the awareness of and attitudes of the pre-service teachers toward disability and inclusion.

Instrument

The instrument used at the end of the course was a researcher-constructed self-report scale, ‘Change in Awareness and Attitude toward Disability and Inclusion Scale’ (CAADIS), constructed to allow the pre-service teachers to assess for themselves the impact of the course on their awareness of and attitudes towards disability and inclusion at pre-course and post-course levels. The instrument was constructed by the researchers in consultation with two academic faculty in the field of special education from the department of the researchers. These faculty members were also involved in the teaching of the course, and hence were aware of the content of the course as well as the local context with regard to disability and inclusion. The first draft of the instrument was created following a review of literature and an examination of existing attitudinal scales. The final draft of the scale was reviewed by another academic, an expert in the field of special education, to establish content validity. It was not possible to pilot the instrument as it required the participants to have undergone the course before they were able to assess the impact of the course on their awareness and attitude towards disability and inclusion.

In constructing the scale, the point made by Oskamp and Schultz (2005) that persuasion proceeds in stages, and that each stage can be studied as a dependent variable was taken into consideration. Hence, the instrument contained two scales examining changes in awareness and attitude; ‘Change in Awareness toward Disability and Inclusion’ and ‘Change in Attitude toward Disability and Inclusion’. Eagly and Chaiken (2007) conceptualisation of the nature of attitudes was also used to guide the development of the items for the scales. The conceptualisation suggests that attitudes can be formed and expressed based on any one or a combination of three dimensions, cognitive, affective and behavioural.

The items in the first scale of the instrument (Change in Awareness toward Disability and Inclusion) were primarily in the cognitive dimension, based on the content covered in the disability awareness course, and sought to assess whether the participants felt that the information presented in the course had increased their awareness. The items in the second scale (Change in Attitude toward Disability and Inclusion) contained items assessing attitudinal change as a result of the course in all three dimensions, cognitive, affective and behavioural intentions. Several exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the two-scale instrument at pre-course and post-course to ascertain the factor structures.

The first scale, ‘Change in Awareness toward Disability and Inclusion Scale’, contained 20 items. The scale required pre-service teachers to rate their awareness of special needs or disability in terms of their knowledge and attitudes before the course and at the point of the end of the course on a 6-point Likert-type scale, from 1 (not aware), 2 (slightly aware), 3 (somewhat aware), 4 (quite aware), 5 (highly aware) to 6 (fully aware).

The scale consisted of two factors or subscales. The first factor or subscale, labelled as ‘Degree of General Awareness’, contained 15 items (items 1-2, 5-6, 10-20). The items in this factor were related to the extent of the participants’ awareness of the positions taken by Singaporean society, their peers and themselves toward people with disabilities, the impact of positions taken on the lives of people with disabilities and mainstream community, their own perspectives of people with disabilities and parties responsible for creating a more inclusive society. The second factor or subscale, labelled ‘Degree of Personal Awareness’, contained 5 items (items 3-4, 7-9). The items in this factor were related to the extent of the participants’ awareness of their own prejudices, misconceptions and stereotyping of people with special needs/disabilities and feelings of discomfort in learning about special needs.

The second scale, ‘Change in Attitude toward Disability and Inclusion Scale’, required the pre-service teachers to assess their attitude towards people with disabilities and inclusion in the dimensions of beliefs, affect/feelings and behaviour before and at the end of the course. They were to indicate the extent of their agreement on each item on a 6 point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (disagree slightly), 4 (agree slightly), 5 (agree) to 6 (strongly agree). This scale consisted of 19 items with one factor. The 19 items in the scale had the participants assess their consciousness of their own positioning and that of society’s, and their ability to think critically about how positions taken had impacted the lives of people with disabilities. They also involved the participants evaluating their perspectives of and attitudes toward people with disabilities, stance on inclusive education and willingness to learn about disability on both personal and professional levels.

There were no neutral or zero points in the scales. The ratings were summed across the items. On the first scale, higher scores indicated greater awareness in terms of their knowledge and beliefs of special needs or disability while higher scores on the second scale indicated more favourable attitudes towards people with disabilities and inclusion at the end of the disability awareness course.

Reliability analyses indicated that the internal consistencies of the scales were good. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients for the general degree of awareness subscale, personal degree of awareness subscale, and the total scale of the ‘Change in Awareness toward Disability and Inclusion’ scale were 0.94, 0.77 and 0.94, respectively for the pre-course scale and 0.93, 0.79 and .93. respectively for the post-course scale. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients for the ‘Change in Attitude toward Disability and Inclusion’ scale were 0.96 for the pre-course scale and 0.95 for the post-course scale.

Results

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics and results of the paired-samples t-tests conducted. In terms of the change in awareness toward disability and inclusion from pre- to post-course levels, the results showed that the pre-service teachers’ overall mean score increased from 3.54 (SD = 0.77, mean score range: 2.57-3.84) at pre-course level to 4.37 (SD = 0.71, mean score range: 3.21-4.95) at the end of the course. The paired-samples t-tests analyses indicated that the course had significantly increased the pre-service teachers’ degree of awareness and knowledge in the areas surveyed in the scale, t(1624) = 58.03, p<.0001. The effect size was large, η2 = 0.67.

Table 1.

Means, standard deviations and results of paired-sample T-test analyses examining pre-service teachers’ change in awareness and attitude toward disability and inclusion from pre to post course levels.

Scale/Subscales	Pre-course M (SD)	Post-course M (SD)	t(1624)	p	η2
Change in Awareness of Disability and Inclusion	3.54 (.77)	4.37 (.71)	58.03	<.001	.67
Degree of General Awareness	3.48 (.93)	4.58 (.75)	58.03	<.001	.67
Degree of Personal Awareness	2.92 (.85)	3.75 (.99)	40.48	<.001	.50
Change in Attitude toward Disability and Inclusion	3.91 (.82)	4.72 (.70)	47.80	<.001	.58

The mean scores on the two subscales, general and personal degree of awareness, were also analysed. There was an increase in the mean score from pre-course (M = 3.48, SD = 0.93, mean score range: 2.89-3.84) to the end of the course (M = 4.58, SD = 0.75, mean score range: 4.23-4.95,) on the general awareness subscale. This was also apparent in the personal degree of awareness subscale, with an increase in the mean score from the beginning (M = 2.92, SD = 0.85, mean score range: 2.57-3.11) to the end of the course (M = 3.75, SD = 0.99, mean score range: 3.21-4.30). The results from the paired-samples t-test analyses revealed that the course had a significant impact in increasing the pre-service teachers’ general awareness, t(1624) = 58.03, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.67, as well as their awareness on a personal level, t(1624) = 40.48, p < 0.0001, η2 = .50. The effect sizes were large.

With regard to the change in the pre-service teachers attitude toward disability and inclusion, the results showed that the overall mean score of the pre-service teachers increased from 3.91 (SD = 0.82, mean score range: 3.51-4.18) at pre-course level to 4.72 (SD = 0.70, mean score range: 4.31-5.02) at the end of the course. The results from the paired-samples t-test analysis revealed that the course had a significant positive impact on their perspectives and attitudes towards people with disabilities and inclusive education, t(1624) = 47.80, p<.0001. The effect size was also large, η² = 0.58.

Paired-samples t-tests were conducted on the impact of the course on the pre-service teachers’ mean scores on the individual items in both scales of CAADIS to examine if the differences in the pre- and post-course mean scores were significant. The results showed significant differences between pre-course and post-course mean scores on all the items surveyed, with large effect sizes. The alpha level was set at 0.01.

Table 2 presents the mean scores and standard deviations of the individual items in the pre- and post-course ‘Change in Awareness toward Disability and Inclusion’ scales, the differences in the mean scores as well as the results of the paired samples t-tests. For greater clarity in the presentation of results, the items in the scale are grouped thematically both in the text and the table.

Table 2.

Means, and standard deviations and results of the paired sample t-tests of the individual items in the pre-course and post-course ‘change in awareness toward disability and inclusion scale’.

Items	Pre-Course M (SD)	Post-course M (SD)	Difference between means	t(1624)	p	η2
General Degree of Awareness
Society plays a part in including and/or excluding people with disabilities. (2)	3.61 (1.20)	4.59 (1.01)	0.98	39.40	<.001	.49
There is a separate education system in Singapore for children with special needs. (11)	3.63 (1.33)	4.52 (1.11)	0.89	34.80	<.001	.48
Many Singaporeans have grown up apart from people with disabilities. (20)	3.53 (1.27)	4.47 (1.07)	0.94	36.83	<.001	.46
Many Singaporeans have limited personal practical knowledge about people with special needs. (13)	3.62 (1.32)	4.62 (1.07)	1.00	37.60	<.001	.47
Many Singaporeans’ understanding of people with special needs is based on public knowledge. (14)	3.65 (1.21)	4.50 (1.02)	0.85	33.51	<.001	.41
My personal beliefs about people with special needs (1)	2.93 (.97)	4.23 (.85)	1.30	60.59	<.001	.69
What my peers at NIE (e.g. tutorial mates) think of people with special needs (19)	2.89 (1.18)	4.25 (1.05)	1.36	47.88	<.001	.59
There are different types of disabilities. (10)	3.84 (1.32)	4.95 (.96)	1.11	38.36	<.001	.48
There is so much to learn about special needs. (12)	3.63 (1.35)	4.84 (1.04)	1.21	42.61	<.001	.53
People with disabilities have gifts and abilities. (5)	3.67 (1.27)	4.62 (1.03)	0.95	35.66	<.001	.44
I can learn from people with special needs. (6)	3.42 (1.36)	4.42 (1.23)	1.00	35.15	<.001	.43
Children with special needs can learn. (18)	3.62 (1.28)	4.80 (1.00)	1.18	42.55	<.001	.53
I have a personal responsibility in creating a more inclusive society. (15)	3.36 (1.26)	4.64 (1.02)	1.28	46.20	<.001	.57
I can make a difference in the lives of people with special needs. (17)	3.33 (1.25)	4.56 (1.04)	1.23	45.45	<.001	.56
Non-disabled children can learn to be inclusive of children with special needs. (16)	3.41 (1.23)	4.62 (1.01)	1.21	43.31	<.001	.54
Personal Degree of awareness
I have some misconceptions about people with special needs. (3)	2.89 (1.07)	3.85 (1.25)	0.96	33.87	<.001	.41
I have some prejudice about people with special needs. (4)	2.57 (1.17)	3.21(1.48)	0.64	23.47	<.001	.25
I have some stereotypes about people with special needs. (7)	2.91 (1.20)	3.54 (1.39)	0.63	23.35	<.001	.25
I have a lot to unlearn and relearn about special needs. (8)	3.11 (1.22)	4.30 (1.17)	1.19	39.52	<.001	.49
Learning about special needs involves feelings of discomfort. (9)	3.11 (1.24)	3.84 (1.37)	0.73	26.71	<.001	.31

N = 1625. Item scoring: 1 – not aware, 2 – slightly aware, 3 – somewhat aware, 4 – quite aware, 5 – highly aware, 6 – fully aware.

A review of the mean scores of the items in the 20 item pre-course survey revealed that 15 of the items had mean scores in the ‘somewhat aware’ range and 5, in the ‘slightly aware’ range. The post-course results showed a shift of one category for 19 items, with 16 in the ‘quite aware’ range and 4 in the ‘somewhat aware’ range. The only item that stayed within the same category of ‘somewhat aware’ was item 9, related to the discomfort felt in learning about special needs; however, the mean score had increased from being at the lower half of the range at the beginning of the course (M = 3.11) to the upper half of the range at the end of the course (M = 3.84), indicating that they had experienced some discomfort in the learning process. Paired-samples t-tests were conducted on the impact of the course on the pre-service teachers’ mean scores on the individual items in the scale to examine if the differences in the pre- and post-course mean scores were significant. The results showed significant differences between pre-course and post-course mean scores on all the items surveyed, with large effect sizes.

Within the general degree of awareness factor, there appeared to be a significant increase in awareness of the role society played in the inclusion or exclusion of people with disabilities (item 2, pre- M = 3.61, post-M = 4.59; t(1624) = 39.40, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.49), and that the position that had been taken in Singapore had resulted in a separate education system for children with special needs (item 11, pre-M = 3.63, post-M = 4.52; t(1624) = 34.80, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.48). They also became significantly more conscious that many Singaporeans had little contact with people with disabilities in their growing up years (item 20, pre-M = 3.53, post-M = 4.47; t(1624) = 36.83, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.46) and many lacked personal knowledge of people with disabilities (item 13, pre-M = 3.62, post-M = 4.62; t(1624) = 37.60, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.47).

There was a significant growth in their realization that many Singaporeans’ understanding of people with special needs was based on secondary sources of knowledge (item 14, pre-M = 3.65, post-M = 4.50; t(1624) = 33.51, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.41). The course apparently brought significantly greater awareness of their personal beliefs of people with disabilities (item 1, pre-M = 2.93, post-M = 4.23; t(1624) = 60.59, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.69) as well as that of their peers (item 19, pre-M = 2.89, post-M = 4.25; t(1624) = 47.88, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.59).

There also seemed a significant increase in their knowledge of different types of disabilities (item 10, pre-M = 3.84, post-M = 4.95; t(1624) = 38.36, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.48), cognizance of the gifts and abilities of people with disabilities (item 5, pre-M = 3.67, post-M = 4.62; t(1624) = 35.66, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.44) and awareness that children with special needs had the ability to learn (item 18, pre-M = 3.62, post-M = 4.80; t(1624) = 42.55, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.53). There was also greater recognition that they could learn from people with special needs (item 6, pre-M = 3.42, post-M = 4.42; t(1624) = 35.15, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.43), and consciousness that they had much to learn about special needs (item 12, pre-M = 3.63, post-M = 4.84; t(1624) = 42.61, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.53).

There was a significant growth in their awareness of the difference they could make in the lives of people with disabilities (item 17, pre-M = 3.33, post-M = 4.56; t(1624) = 45.45, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.56), their personal responsibility to create a more inclusive society (item 15, pre-M = 3.36, post-M = 4.64; t(1624) = 46.20, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.57) and that children without disabilities could learn to be more inclusive of children with special needs (item 16, pre-M = 3.41, post-M = 4.62; t(1624) = 43.31, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.54).

In the personal degree of awareness factor, it appeared that the course exerted a significant effect in aiding the pre-service teachers to become more aware of their misconceptions (item 3, pre-M = 2.89, post-M = 3.85; t(1624) = 33.87, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.41), prejudice (item 4, pre-M = 2.57, post-M = 3.21; t(1624) = 23.47, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.25 and stereotypes (item 7, pre-M = 2.91, post-M = 3.54; t(1624) = 23.35, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.25) of people with special needs. There was also increased realisation that they had a lot to unlearn and relearn about special needs (item 8, pre-M = 3.11, post-M = 4.30; t(1624) = 39.52, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.49). There was also a significant amount of discomfort experienced in the process of learning about special needs (item 9, pre-M = 3.11, post-M = 3.84; t(1624) = 26.71, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.31).

Table 3 presents the mean scores and standard deviations of the individual items in the pre- and post-course ‘Change in Attitude toward Disability and Inclusion’ scales, the differences between the mean scores and the results of the paired-samples t-tests. As with the awareness scale, the results are presented according to themes and the items accordingly grouped within the scale in the table.

Table 3.

Means, and standard deviations and results of the paired sample t-tests of the individual items in the pre-course and post-course ‘change in attitude toward disability and inclusion scale’.

Items	Pre-Course M (SD)	Post-course M (SD)	Difference between means	t(1624)	p	η2
I am conscious about my position in relation to the experience of disability. (17)	3.82 (1.10)	4.67 (.94)	0.85	35.22	<.001	.42
I am conscious about society’s position in relation to the experience of disability. (18)	3.76 (1.08)	4.62 (.93)	0.86	37.70	<.001	.47
I can see how society shapes opportunities for interaction between able and disabled people. (5)	3.58 (1.08)	4.43 (1.04)	0.85	36.63	<.001	.45
I am able to think critically about how society influences the quality of life of people with special needs. (7)	3.75 (1.01)	4.68 (.91)	0.93	40.21	<.001	.50
I am able to think critically about how society can marginalize people with special needs. (11)	3.73 (1.05)	4.57 (.94)	0.84	36.31	<.001	.45
I am comfortable talking about issues related to special needs. (10)	3.96 (1.08)	4.72 (.91)	0.76	34.31	<.001	.42
Children with special needs can learn. (1)	4.12 (1.10)	5.02 (.90)	0.90	37.65	<.001	.47
I am able to see people with disabilities in a positive light. (6)	4.04 (1.03)	4.86 (.88)	0.82	36.11	<.001	.45
Singaporeans with disabilities are as valuable as non-disabled Singaporeans. (16)	4.18 (1.18)	4.90 (1.04)	0.72	30.93	<.001	.37
I am accepting of people with special needs. (19)	4.17 (1.12)	4.99 (.90)	0.82	33.39	<.001	.41
I am sensitive to people with special needs in society. (2)	4.01(1.07)	4.59 (1.03)	0.58	25.44	<.001	.29
I am sensitive in the use of my language when talking about people with special needs. (4)	4.14 (1.06)	4.74 (.92)	0.60	27.54	<.001	.32
I am in favour of including children with special needs in mainstream classes. (9)	3.51 (1.18)	4.30 (1.15)	0.79	32.08	<.001	.39
I am open to the idea of creating an inclusive classroom. (12)	3.80 (1.15)	4.65 (1.04)	0.85	35.71	<.001	.44
I am willing to accept children with special needs in my classroom. (3)	3.68 (1.13)	4.41 (1.07)	0.73	30.97	<.001	.37
I can play an active role in including children with special needs in my classroom. (15)	3.90 (1.08)	4.79 (.94)	0.89	37.67	<.001	.47
I believe it is important to be creative in accommodating children with special needs. (14)	4.11 (1.09)	4.94 (.96)	0.83	35.10	<.001	.43
I would like to be better equipped in terms of knowledge and skills to help children with special needs. (8)	4.09 (1.11)	5.02 (.95)	0.93	38.69	<.001	.48
I would like to learn more about my fellow Singaporeans with special needs. (13)	3.97 (1.08)	4.82 (.94)	0.85	37.20	<.001	.46

N = 1625. Item scoring: 1 – strongly disagree, 2 – disagree, 3 – disagree slightly, 4 – agree slightly, 5 – agree, 6 – strongly agree.

In terms of changes in attitude toward disability and inclusion, the results showed that the course had significantly increased the pre-service teachers’ consciousness of their own (item 17, pre-M = 3.82, post-M = 4.67; t(1624) = 35.22, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.42 and society’s (item 18, pre-M = 3.76, post-M = 4.62; t(1624) = 37.70, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.47) positions towards disability and how society shaped opportunities for interaction between people with and without disabilities (item 5, pre-M = 3.58, post-M = 4.43; t(1624) = 36.63, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.45). There was a significant difference from pre- to post-course in the pre-service teachers’ ability to think more critically about how society could influence the quality of life of people with disabilities (item 7, pre-M = 3.75, post-M = 4.68; t(1624) = 40.21, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.50) and induce their marginalisation (items 11, pre-M = 3.73, post-M = 4.57; t(1624) = 36.31, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.45). They also felt they could discuss issues related to special needs with greater comfort (item 10, pre-M = 3.96, post-M = 4.72; t(1624) = 34.31, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.42).

The results also revealed that the course had encouraged more positive perspectives of people with disabilities in the pre-service teachers. Their perspective of the learning ability of children with special needs changed from slight agreement at pre-course level to full agreement at the end of the course (item 1, pre- M = 4.12, post- M = 5.02; t(1624) = 37.65, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.47). There was a significant difference in their ability to see people with disabilities more positively (item 6, pre-M = 4.04, post-M = 4.86; t(1624) = 36.11, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.45) and recognition that people with disabilities were as valuable as those without disabilities (item 16, pre-M = 4.18, post-M = 4.90; t(1624) = 30.93, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.37).

The course appeared to have encouraged significantly greater acceptance of people with special needs (item 19, pre-M = 4.17, post-M = 4.99; t(1624) = 33.39, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.41) in the pre-service teachers, and greater sensitivity towards them (item 2, pre-M = 4.01, post-M = 4.59; t(1624) = 25.44, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.29). The pre-service teachers reported a significant increase in their sensitivity in the use of language when talking about people with special needs (item 4, pre-M = 4.14, post-M = 4.74; t(1624) = 27.54, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.32).

The pre-service teachers seemed to have shifted their stance regarding inclusive education, from slight disagreement to slight agreement. The results revealed a significant difference between pre- and post-course mean scores and showed the pre-service teachers being more in favour of including children with special needs in mainstream classrooms (item 9, pre-M = 3.51, post-M = 4.30; t(1624) = 32.08, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.39). They were significantly more open to the idea of creating inclusive classrooms (item 12, pre-M = 3.80, post-M = 4.65; t(1624) = 35.71, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.44).

On a personal level, there was also significantly greater willingness to accept children with special needs into their classrooms (item 3, pre-M = 3.68, post-M = 4.41; t(1624) = 30.97, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.37) and acknowledgement that they could play an active role in including children with special needs in their own classrooms (item 15, pre-M = 3.90, post-M = 4.79; t(1624) = 37.67, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.47). They also felt that it was important for them to exercise their creativity in accommodating children with special needs (item 14, pre-M = 4.11, post-M = 4.94; t(1624) = 35.10, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.43). The results also showed a significant change from pre- to post-course of the pre-service teachers’ desire to be equipped with better knowledge and skills to help children with special needs (item 8, pre-M = 4.09, post-M = 5.02; t(1624) = 38.69, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.48) and learning more about people with special needs in Singapore (item 13, pre-M = 3.97, post-M = 4.82; t(1624) = 37.20, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.46).

Discussion

The purpose of the study was to develop and pilot a disability awareness course and examine whether it could encourage more positive attitudes in pre-service teachers towards people with disabilities and inclusion. The results indicated that there were significant changes, with large effect sizes, in the pre-service teachers’ overall awareness and attitude towards disability and inclusion before and after the course. These findings reinforced the conclusion reached in other related studies that pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards disability and inclusion can be influenced positively by teacher preparation courses.

Specifically, this study affirmed the conclusion of researchers in the disability (e.g. Avramidis and Kalyva 2007; Killoran, Woronko, and Zaretsky 2014; Priyanti 2022; Rice 2006; Stamopoulous 2006) and prejudice reduction (Monteith 1993; Rokeach 1971) fields of the effectiveness of a disability awareness approach in changing perceptions and attitudes. This study offers quantitative empirical evidence in support of this approach to reduce prejudice and stereotyping and foster more positive attitudes towards people with disabilities and openness to the idea of inclusive education.

One of the key findings that emerged was that in the process of becoming more aware of their own personal beliefs of people with disabilities, the pre-service teachers became more cognizant of the fact that they possessed certain misconceptions, stereotypes and prejudices about people with disabilities. This personal awareness, according to Glazier (2004), is a vital first step as it breaks down the ‘expectations and stereotypes of others, either of which can inhibit a teacher’s ability to educate diverse students’ (p. 621).

The pre-service teachers had started the course with low expectations of people with disabilities and had the impression that they were less capable than those without disabilities. However, at the end of the course, the results indicated that the pre-service teachers were seeing people with disabilities in a more positive light. This finding can be attributed to the viewing of positive stories of persons with disabilities and realising their possibilities and potential to live more fulfilling and productive lives in Singapore if given the necessary support. There was also increased appreciation of the gifts and abilities of people with disabilities and a stronger belief that children with special needs could learn.

The results also indicated that there appeared to be a significant increase in the pre-service teachers’ level of acceptance and greater sensitivity towards people with disabilities, including the use of language and its potential influence on perceptions of people with disabilities. The course apparently also shifted the stance of the pre-service teachers from one of being in slight disagreement towards inclusive education, a lack of willingness to accept and play an active role in including students with disabilities in their classrooms to one of slight agreement. These improved attitudes towards inclusive education may have their source in a more positive view of people with disabilities, and the realisation on the part of the pre-service teachers that they could make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities, and had a personal responsibility in creating a more inclusive society.

While the course content was developed for the pre-service teachers to appreciate new perspectives and new understandings about persons with disabilities, the core process of facilitating the pre-service teachers to be critically reflexive in deconstructing their own biographical histories of how each of them have been socialized and influenced to relate to disability within the Singaporean context, was vital to the effectiveness of the course. This process of critical reflexivity by the pre-service teachers on how they came to know about disability and ipso facto becoming personally aware of their own misconceptions about persons with disabilities, echoes Slee’s (2001) observation that most of us have come to know about disability at a distance. This is particularly evident in the Singaporean context where generations of citizens have traditionally been schooled in a dual system of educating students with and without disabilities in separate education systems (Lim and Thaver 2018; Lim, Thaver, and Slee 2008).

There was a significant amount of discomfort experienced in the process of learning about special needs, as indicated in the results. The sense of cognitive dissonance and emotional discomfort that arose from pre-service teachers gaining greater cognizance and personal awareness of their own misconceptions, biases and prejudice was explicitly reframed as a natural part of the re-learning process of relating to disability in new ways. Making visible and conscious (through personal reflections and sharing within tutorial groups) the responses of the pre-service teachers in terms of their own thoughts and feelings about themselves in relation to disability allowed a personal encounter with their own attitudes towards disability and identification of prevailing social influences and sources. This reflexive self-critical process is not easy (Moore 2007) and, in itself, is a ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ (Boler 1999, as cited in Moore 2007); which is why the experience of cognitive dissonance and feeling discomfort was explained to the pre-service teachers as a natural part of the learning process and pedagogy of the course.

A point that should be noted is that while the pre-service teachers had acknowledged that the course had increased their knowledge of the different types of disabilities, they also recognised that they needed to learn more about special needs and expressed a desire to be better equipped in knowledge and skills to help students with special needs. This was not an unexpected finding. Given the short duration of the course, a decision had been made to focus on engendering more positive perspectives of people with disabilities, creating an awareness of the state of inclusion in Singapore and exploring possibilities for inclusion.

The pre-service teachers would have attained only a basic awareness of the various types of disabilities and strategies which could be used to create more inclusive environments and support students with special needs through the group presentations of different areas of disability during their tutorials and information presented in the final lecture of the course. Although this sense of inadequacy did not result in non-significant findings, as in the studies of Kirk (1998) and Meyers and Lester (2016) which utilised a similar combination of strategies, further professional development is critically needed to sustain and strengthen these initial and tentatively positive attitudes.

Implications

There are several implications that can be drawn from these results for teacher education with regard to the type of coursework, persuasive communication strategies and pedagogies that could be effective in modifying attitudes. It appears that a focused course in the form of a disability awareness course, utilising a combination of elements such as reflective activities, active information processing strategies (e.g. discussions, collaborative groupwork), fieldwork tasks and positively structured exposure to people with disabilities can be effective in changing perceptions and attitudes even though the course is of a very short duration.

The findings suggest that several elements probably encouraged this shift in attitudes of the pre-service teachers. Firstly, the instructional pedagogy adopted in the course was an invitational one, respecting the fact that the pre-service teachers were self-directed adult learners with funds of knowledge, experience and skills, learning best through facilitation, dialogue, reflection and personal involvement (Knowles 1984; Vella 1994, 2002; Szocik, Gerry, and Nagro 2021). It was a pedagogy that sought to change attitudes and perspectives through facilitating the pre-service teachers in constructing their own understanding of the course content and issues through (re)examination of their own personal experiences and experiential learning rather than through transmission of knowledge using an authority-oriented approach. It has been found by a number of studies in pre-service teacher education that courses focused primarily on dissemination of information can have little or no impact on fostering more positive attitudes (e.g. Cook 2002; Shippen et al. 2005; Tait and Purdie 2000; Vanderfaeillie, De Fever, and Lombaerts 2003).

Secondly, the recommendation made by a number of researchers (e.g. Avramidis and Kalyva 2007; Mansouri et al. 2024; Parey 2023; Priyanti 2022; Symeonidou 2024; Tangen 2005) of the importance of challenging the ways which teachers conceptualise difference, their currently held attitudes towards people with disabilities and their philosophy of inclusion to stimulate change in thinking and practice, was taken into account. The course, thus, first looked at positioning the pre-service teachers for learning about their own attitudes towards disability and inclusion by engaging them in critical reflexivity and dialogue about how they had been socialised into particular discourses surrounding disability within the Singaporean context.

As a critical and inquiring community, they were led to deconstruct and reflect on their personal beliefs, assumptions and feelings about disability, ‘restory’ their ideas or notions about disability and reconstruct their own ideological position (Kolar and Dickson 2002; Szocik, Gerry, and Nagro 2021) and perspectives of people with disabilities. This was seen as the crucial first step in starting the pre-service teachers on a life-long journey of reflecting on and owning an inclusive personal pedagogy where difference is construed as invaluable for teaching the attitudes, values, beliefs and skills to support the inclusion of diverse others (Lim, Thaver, and Slee 2008).

Thirdly, an element that is important to include within preparation courses for pre-service teachers is that of contact with people with disabilities, whether direct or indirect/vicarious. A recent review on interventions on changing attitudes towards people with disabilities by Giuntoli et al. (2024) indicated that contact with people with disabilities had a positive effect on attitudes towards people with disabilities. The media shown should focus on creating empathetic understanding and appreciating the fact that persons with and without disabilities have greater similarities than differences in terms of human needs and aspirations (Donaldson 1980).

The videos shown in the course highlighted the inspirational yet ordinary lives of people with disabilities and inclusion experiences that challenged the mindsets of the pre-service teachers to reconsider their beliefs in the capacities of people with disabilities and the support required to achieve a desired quality of life. It is probable a result of this structured indirect contact with people with disabilities that the pre-service teachers arrived at a greater respect and appreciation for the abilities and gifts of people with disabilities and increased openness to the idea of inclusive education. This confirms a key finding in the meta-analysis of Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) and scoping review of Giuntoli et al. (2024) contact can act to reduce prejudice.

The findings of the pre-service teachers’ increased openness towards inclusive education and willingness to accept students with disabilities into their classrooms and to work towards creating more inclusive classrooms should not be treated as permanent changes in attitudes as these attitudes have not stood the test of time and the realities of managing a regular mainstream classroom where students with special needs are present. To maintain these tentatively formed favourable attitudes, two related initiatives could be considered at the stage of pre-service teacher education and at school level when the newly graduated teachers enter their schools of posting.

At pre-service level, arrangements could be made during practicum for pre-service teachers to observe sessions and/or classes with students with disabilities conducted by teachers experienced in working with students with disabilities and undergo coaching by these educators in supporting selected students with disabilities during this period. These opportunities for observations, structured mentoring and coaching should also be present in the initial years of teaching for beginning teachers. With these scaffolds in place, pre-service teachers and new graduands would not feel like they had been thrown into the ‘deep end’ to manage a task which they did not feel fully prepared for. In such situations, where there is little or no systemic support, a lack of teacher expertise and pressures from an education system still perceived as highly competitive and measuring the performance of teachers by their students’ academic outcomes, it would only be natural for positive attitudes to erode and inclusion seen as utopian (Croll and Moses 2000).

Limitations and further research

The findings of attitudinal change in the pre-service teachers as a result of the disability awareness were obtained through self-reports, thus, it must also be acknowledged that these responses could have been influenced by the pre-service teachers’ desire to portray themselves in a more positive light and may bear little relationship to their actual behaviours in their personal and professional lives. In addition, according to Wilson, Lindsey, and Schooler (2000), old attitudes may endure in implicit forms along with the new explicit attitudes. This change in attitude and perceptions, a result of a ‘critical event’ (Woods 1993), the disability awareness course, can be short-lived unless there is an inclusive ethos in the schools the pre-service teachers will enter as full-fledged teachers which supports the maintenance of these newly formed attitudes or if these pre-service teachers are self-motivated and have the capacity to consciously adhere to the new explicit attitudes.

If there is no such ethos or capacity, there will be a tendency for these new attitudes to erode and for them to revert back to the old implicit attitudes (Eagly and Chaiken 2007; Rice 2006; Wilson, Lindsey, and Schooler 2000). A follow-up study may be able to evaluate whether the purported changes in attitudes and perspectives reported translates into practice in the school environment and can be sustained in an educational climate such as the one found in Singapore which remains competitive and outcome-oriented.

Secondly, even though the changes in attitudes and perspectives were reported by the pre-service teachers themselves as a result of the course they underwent, the methodological limitation in the use of a single non-randomized sample without a comparison group, as in the one group recollection proxy-pretest posttest design, does not allow the changes to be directly attributed to the course.

Finally, while this investigation has suggested that the course seemed to be instrumental in changing the awareness and attitudes of the pre-service teachers, there is no indication of the specific strategies within the course which might have elicited these changes. It would be important to conduct additional studies, both quantitative and qualitative, to explore which specific strategies might have played a more important role in changing the pre-service teachers’ perspectives and attitudes. Qualitative inquiries would provide opportunities for more in-depth exploration of the pre-service teachers’ responses to various elements in the course and factors, either personal or within the socio-cultural context of Singapore, which act to encourage or hinder the formation of more positive attitudes towards people with disabilities and inclusive education. It could also capture the nuances of the feelings and thoughts of the pre-service teachers, the process of change and the reasons for the attitudinal change or lack of as well as the degrees of acceptance of people with disabilities and inclusion as they progress through the course.

Funding Statement

Funding and ethical approval for the research project leading to these findings were obtained from the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice (CRPP), National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (CRP46/03LL)].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study is available in the NIE Data Repository at https://doi.org/10.25340/R4/AMV9EO.