Investigation of the competence of teachers in inclusive practices and their emotions, attitudes and anxieties related to inclusive education

The aim of this study is to investigate the competence of primary school teachers and secondary school teachers who have inclusive students in public school classrooms and their feelings, attitudes, and anxieties towards inclusive education. The study is descriptive and based on a scanning model. The research group of the study consists of primary and secondary school teachers who have inclusive students in their class in 2019-2010 Education Years. In is study data was collected from 590 teachers via Google forms and the data of 490 participants was analyzed after scales that were filled correctly and completely. In this study, Personal Information Form, Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practice Scale, and Sentiments, Attitudes and Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale were used as data collection tools. The data was obtained and analyzed with the SPSS25 package program . In data analysis, Independent Sample t test, one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Mann- Whitney U test, Kruskal- Wallis H test, correlation Analysis and Tukey HSD were used. In the study, it was determined that the proficiency of the teachers in inclusive practices was at a high level. In this study, a low-level, positive correlation was found between teachers' proficiency in inclusive practices and their feelings, attitudes and concerns about inclusive education. While the proficiency of teachers in inclusive practices does not show a significant difference depending on gender, educational status, whether there are inclusive students in previous years and professional seniority; There was a significant difference between receiving education on inclusion, reading any publication about inclusion education and depending on the branch. The proficiency of teachers who received education on inclusion and read any publications on inclusion are higher than those who did not receive education on inclusion and did not read any publications on inclusion. In the study, it was seen that teachers' feelings, attitudes and concerns about inclusive education were at a moderate level. Emotions, attitudes and concerns of teachers towards inclusive education did not show a significant difference depending on gender, educational status, whether there were inclusive students in previous years, whether they received training on inclusive education, whether they read any publications related to inclusive education, branch and professional seniority.