The effect of mainstream training program on teacher competences, mentally handicapped children's achievements and social adaptations

The purpose of this research is to determine the effect of mainstream classroom teachers' training on teacher competences, achievements and social adaptations of mentally handicapped children. Afterwards it was searched whether there were significant differences between third and fourth grade Turkish and mathematics achievements of mild mentally handicapped (MMH) students and peers studying at elementary school classrooms whose teachers received and not received Mainstream Training Program (KEP) Course. In addition, the significant differences between social competence and school adjustment of MMH students and teacher competence in experimental and control groups were investigated. Besides, observations related with instructional practices at classroom, teacher and parent interviews were conducted. As a method, quantitative dominant mixed quasi experimental design is utilized. This research has been carried out in 2016-2017 school year in the district of Altindag, the town of Ankara, with nine elementary schools, fourteen teachers, ten parents and fourteen MMH of 367 mainstream classroom students . Third and fourth grade Turkish and Mathematics Assessments, Teacher Competence Form, Structured Observation Form, Semi-structured Teacher and Parent Interview Forms developed by the researcher and Walker McConnell Social Competence and School Adjustment Scale (Elementary Version) adapted by Uz Bas (2003) were applied as data collection devices. While analyzing quantitative data parametric (independent samples t-test, paired samples t-test) and non-parametric (Kruskal Wallis, Friedman, Mann Whitney U, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Tests, General Linear Model) tests, for qualitative data content analysis were used. In order to calculate reliability Cronbach Alpha (0,83-0,95) and KR-20 (0,85-0,89) were used. As a result, according to teacher competence scores, Turkish and mathematics achievements, social competence and school adjustment scores of MMH students, between experimental and control groups there were no significant differences detected. Additionally, with respect to Turkish and mathematics achievements of mainstream classroom students, there were significant differences between groups in favour of experimental group. Also, there was found significant difference between first and second month observation scores of the teachers participated KEP Course.