The Utility of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP): Measuring self-esteem profiles of children with special educational needs and assessing the attitudes of teachers to children with emotional behavioural difficulties in mainstream education

The aim of the current thesis was threefold. The first aim was primarily methodological and attempted to determine the utility of the IRAP as a measure of children’s attitude to gender. Experiment 1was the first study that attempted to employ the IRAP as a measure of children’s implicit attitudes in relation to gender. The IRAP outcomes observed were consistent with previous IRAP studies and demonstrated the utility of the IRAP with children. The second aim was to determine if children who varied along the Special Educational Needs continuum would show a profile of implicit attitude to the self and others that was consistent with developmental profiles. Within this aim, Experiments 3 and 4 investigated the self-esteem profiles of three groups of children (normally-developing, dyslexic and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) by employing the IRAP and an explicit measure (the Piers-Harris Self Concept Scale). Across both Experiments the IRAP highlighted the differences between Normally- Developing children and those with Dyslexia and ADHD in terms of implicit self-esteem and their attitudes to others. While all three groups of children fell within the average range of self-esteem on the Piers-Harris differences were observed on the domain scales that were consistent with both the Dyslexic and ADHD groups academic and social difficulties. The third aim of the thesis was to examine teacher’s implicit attitudes to pupils with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties in mainstream education in comparison to Normally-Developing Pupils. The attitudes of three groups of teachers who varied in their experience and the educational context in which they were employed were examined (in- Training, Primary and Post-Primary) Comparisons between Experiments 4 and 5 revealed a significant difference in attitudes for Pupil versus EBD pupil for Primary teachers only