A study of regular classroom teachers\u27 acceptability of instructional accommodations for students with disabilities in a select school district of middle Tennessee

This study was conducted to investigate regular classroom teachers\u27 acceptability of instructional accommodations for students with disabilities and to analyze demographic variables hypothesized to affect the acceptability of the accommodations. It was of particular interest to examine how regular classroom teachers of different grade levels would respond to such adaptations. Using the Teaching Adaptation Scale (TAS) questionnaire, elementary (n = 142), middle grades ( n = 61), and secondary (n = 89) regular classroom teachers rated the acceptability of 29 strategies made up of several accommodations for students with disabilities typically found in the literature. These accommodations were grouped within six domains: Classroom Management, Grouping Strategies, Additional Teaching, Strategic Teaching, Activity Adjustment, and Assessment. The TAS allowed for the evaluation of three different dimensions: feasibility, effectiveness, and desirability of each accommodation within each domain Frequency distributions were conducted to obtain a greater understanding of the sample and its characteristics. Six null hypotheses were analyzed to determine significant differences in any of the six domains as related to the feasibility and effectiveness of instructional accommodations for students with disabilities. Multiple Analyses of Variance (MANOVAs), one-way ANOVAs, independent t tests, and the Tukey HSD test were used for statistical analysis. Statistically significant differences were found among the three grade level groups (K–5, 6–8, 9–12) of teachers, with K–5 teachers consistently scoring the highest on both feasibility and effectiveness of instructional adaptations. Statistically significant differences between males and females on both feasibility and effectiveness variables were also discovered. A third statistical significant difference was found on the Grouping Strategies variable, both in feasibility and effectiveness, based on educational degree. No statistically significant differences surfaced on any of the variables in feasibility and effectiveness based on teaching experience, university courses or training (professional development)