An Investigation of Psychological Counselling and Guidance Department Students’ Perceptions of Inclusive Education Related Competence

Abstract

The purpose of the present research is investigating psychological counseling and guidance department students’ perceptions of their inclusive education related competence.  The work group of the present research consists of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students, who studied at Konya Necmettin Erbakan University Ahmet Keleşoğlu Faculty of Education in 2013-2014 academic years. The participants were 152 (92 female and 60 male) who participated in the research voluntarily. The mean age of the participants was 19.51 years (between 18-22 years old) with a standard deviation of 1.61 years. Data were collected via Information Form developed by the researchers and Inclusive Education Questionnaire developed by Aksüt, Battal and Yaldız (2005). Collected data were analyzed on SPSS 17.0 software. Descriptive analyses, t-test, ANOVA test, and Tukey test were utilized for data analysis. Inclusive Education Questionnaire consists of 4 sub-dimensions. There are significant differences across class grades and genders in terms of psychological counseling and guidance department students’ competence of recognizing individuals who need special education in inclusive education, and competence of implementing methods and techniques used in inclusive education. There aren’t significant differences across genders in terms of psychological counselling and guidance department students’ knowing and implementing competence of inclusive education principles while there are significant differences across grades. There aren’t significant differences across genders in terms of assessment and evaluation competence, while there are significant differences across grades. There are no significant differences across genders in terms of general competence, while there are significant differences across grades.