As Figure 23 indicates, nearly all respondents strongly agreed that the concept of ITE as a foundation for ongoing professional learning was relevant for their students, but while the majority agreed – most still strongly – that this was covered in sufficient depth and that staff were confident in covering this area, up to 30% were unsure, with a small number disagreeing.
Overview
There is clearly a marked trend across all of these responses in that 90-100% of respondents, for each item, strongly agree that the statement is relevant for all students. Yet, in contrast, although most respondents tend to agree overall, approximately only 40-60% of respondents strongly agree that a) the area is covered in sufficient depth in the programme, and b) staff are confident in covering this area of content, with varying distributions across the other scale options. The numbers responding ‘Not Sure’ regarding depth and confidence are fairly low, except for the two items ‘Working collaboratively with parents and families’ and ‘Working with a range of other educational professionals’, which may suggest that these areas are less well embedded within some programmes. It needs though to be recognised that respondents may respond ‘Not Sure’ because they are not familiar enough with elements of the programme to make an informed judgement. In fact in some cases, respondents noted this explicitly in some of the open text response items, as in:
Please note the following: I have completed this questionnaire based on my own perceptions which may be disputed by colleagues working on this programme. I have ticked a number of ‘not sure’ boxes. This is because we have not formally reviewed and researched these questions.
It is reasonable to suggest that this response reflects the considerable complexity of many ITE programmes, as well as the inevitable multiple extant views on them within programme teams. Nevertheless, the number of ‘Not Sure ’ responses overall was lower than expected based on the professional experience of the research team and their familiarity with the typical competencies of programme leaders working in ITE, and thus may suggest that we can have some level of confidence in the overall trend revealed in the survey, namely that there is a noteworthy difference between agreeing that the areas identified in the EASNIE profile are important, and being clear about how these are implemented in programmes. Florian et al. (2010) in their review of a re-engineering of an initial teacher education programme towards inclusive pedagogy noted that some teacher educators also expressed a lack of confidence in their understanding and ability to implement an inclusive approach in their teaching. However, a review of the literature (search terms ‘teacher educator‘’ and ‘inclusion’ on the PsycInfo and SCOPUS databases) did not indicate any significant quantitative data on teacher educator confidence to which the data presented here could be compared.
We also note that there is scope for comparison of the pattern of responses identified here in the survey with the documentary analysis, and it is worth noting that the survey instrument was not constrained in the same way by the context of the Teaching Council expectations.
4.2.2 Open text responses
Our approach to analysis of the open text responses was broadly similar to that adopted for the documentary analysis. Initially we examined the content of the documents by skim-reading the whole document in order to become familiar with its content and structure. The text was then imported into Nvivo, and coded against our typology of a priori themes derived from the EASNIE Profile for Inclusive Teachers (EADSNE, 2012). The level of responses to questions varied, with some items attracting more comment than others, hence conclusions can only be tentative and are intended to feed into the overall analysis rather than stand on their own.
Again, our approach in the analysis was an interpretative act acknowledging that we cannot draw definite conclusions regarding the programmes based on these responses, which were no doubt completed under different time constraints, and, as indicated above, were likely in many cases to involve single individuals making judgements on large and complex programmes involving many actors. As already noted, there was considerable variation in the level of response for most of the open text response items on the survey. Some respondents gave lengthy answers up to 600-700 words, while some only gave answers of a few sentences in length. Given the (inevitably) contingent nature of the data, our aim was to explore and capture the concepts around inclusive education apparent in the responses stated either explicitly or implicitly in relation to the EASNIE profile. However, given the nature of the data collection method these can only be indicative rather than definitive. In this sense, the numbers of text references coded to the typology derived from the EASNIE Profile offers only a loose indication of areas that seemed to occur more frequently in the data.
Again, similar to the documentary analysis, the overall picture of responses broadly concurs with the content of the EASNIE Profile for Inclusive Teachers (EADSNE, 2012). The core values of the profile are evident to a great extent throughout the preponderance of the responses. Overall, 111 references were coded across all 21 respondents, with the spread of responses broadly in the proportion 30% primary and 70% post-primary. Thirty-eight references across all question responses for the 21 respondents were coded to the data node “Concepts of Inclusive Education”. For example:
“Issues of inclusion and diversity are imbedded both explicitly and implicitly in many of the programme aims.”
“The development of professionals who challenge and confront social injustice and inequality as they see them in the class, playground and in the community, thus helping them to become agents of change.”
“To move consideration of this issue from being perceived as a marginal optional extra to be seen as part of the mainstream of education provision.”
Ten references were coded to the data node “Teacher Views on Learner Differences”. For example: “ … recognition of, and respect for, the dignity of the individual; and the recognition, appreciation and accommodation of the diverse education needs.”
“The BEd programme provides opportunities for students to engage in a critical manner with their own attitudes and beliefs in relation to difference and inclusion; and to provide them with the language to engage in critical debate in relation to difference and to understand that the recognition of difference goes beyond mere tolerance.”
References were also coded to the following data nodes: