RESEARCH PRESENTATION

RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOUR AND SELF-EFFICACY TECHNIQUES IN ENHANCING ATTITUDE OF FREGULAR CLASSROOM TEACHERS TO LEARNERS WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT IN SOUTH WEST, NIGERIA

BY
 
ADEBIYI, BENEDICTUS ADEKUNLE, Ph.D
Department of Education for Learners with Visual Impairment,
&
AJOBIEWE, ANTHONIA IFEOMA Ph.D
Department of Rehabilitation Education,
School of Special Education
Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo.

INTRODUCTION

In the last few decades, there has been a lot of thinking, rethinking and re-orientation in the conceptualization of education of persons with disabilities in the world in general and in Nigeria in particular.  As a result of these changes, Obani (2006) observes that special needs education is no longer regarded as education for the handicapped and disabled only, rather has gone a long way to include many other disadvantaged learners and persons with different forms and levels of learning requirements

In recent times, special education has moved from closed to open education, from segregation to inclusion.  Inclusion is the higher level of integration, Inclusion requires that schools prepare, plan for, and adapt their systems and practices to meet the learning of every school child with or without disabilities in the same neighbourhood schools (Obani, 2003).

 In this new dispensation, many regular classroom teachers find it difficult to cope with methods and techniques of educating learners with Visual impairment in a regular school system.  This might be due to the fact that they are not properly trained and exposed to the techniques of handling this category of special need children.

Attitude of regular teachers may be negative towards the way to handling learners with Visual Impairment in the classroom.  Simply because 80 percent of all school tasks are believed to be based on vision, and these people can neither read nor write printed materials.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Relevant Literatures were reviewed

CONCEPTUAL MODEL

Keys: S =Stimulus O= Organism R = Response   S-------------------------------------------------------------------------R

 

Factorial Matrix

Treatment	Gender		Total
	Male	Female
REBT:	*22	*25	47
Self-Efficacy	*20	*27	47
Control Group	*26	*22	48
Total	68	74	142

HYPOTHESES

• ·There is no significant difference in the attitude of participants treated with Rational Emotive Behaviour and Self Efficacy technique and the Control group
• There is no significant difference in the attitude of male and female teachers exposed to REBT and those treated with self-efficacy techniques.
• There is no significant interaction effect of treatment and gender on attitude of the participants.

METHODOLOGY

Research Design

This study adopted a pre-test, post test and control group design; using a 3 x 2 factorial matrix.

PARTICIPANTS

A sample of 142 regular classroom teachers were drawn in some selected schools in South Western Nigeria.  Purposive sampling technique was employed for selecting schools of the study.  This was necessary because the focus was on the school where learners with Visual impairment are educated alongside their sighted counterparts (inclusive).  The following selected schools were used for the study.

INSTRUMENTS

The major instrument used for the study was regular “Teachers Attitude Scale toward the Blind” designed by Ozoji (1991).  The instrument was Brailled and adapted for the study.  It was a 20 item instrument designed to measure attitude towards the blind.  The instrument was pilot tested to group of regular teachers different from those that were used for the study and a test-retest reliability co-efficient of .72 was obtained.

PROCEDURES

Rational Emotive behavioural and self Efficacy techniques were employed to enhance better attitude of regular Classroom teachers to learners with Visual impairment.  It tested for six weeks of 12 sessions each.  There were 3 groups.  The first group was exposed to treatment on rational Emotive behaviour.  The second group was exposed to treatment on self efficacy while the 3^rd group which is the Control group was not exposed to any training or treatment.

FIELD WORK

RESULTS

Results: Hypothesis One

The first hypothesis states that there is no significant main effect of treatment on attitude of the participant.  The hypothesis was tested using ANCOVA.

The result shows that F = 5.569, degree of freedom (df) = 2/138 and P = 0.012, since P = 0.012< 0.05 it implies that there is significance main effect of treatment on attitude of the participants.  Therefore the researchers conclude that there is a significant main effect of treatment on attitude of the participants.

Result: Hypothesis Two

The second hypothesis states there is no significant main effect of gender on attitude of the participants.

The result from Table 2 above shows that f = 0.692, df = 1,139 and P = 0.407 , since P=0.407> 0.05.  It implies that there is no significant main effect of gender on attitude of the participants.  Therefore, the researchers conclude that there is significant main effect of gender on attitude of the participants.

Result: Hypothesis III

Hypothesis III states that there is no significant interaction effects of treatment and gender on attitude of the participants.

This hypothesis was tested using ANCOVA, the result is as in table III above.  The result from table III shows that f=0.211, degree of freedom (df) = 2/135, P = 0.810.  Since P = 0.810> 0.05 it implies that the null hypothesis holds and the researchers conclude that there is no significant interaction effect of treatment and gender on attitude of the participants.

DISCUSSION

The result of the Hypothesis which states that there is no significant main effect of treatment on attitude of participants.  As presented in Table I there is a significant main effect of treatment on attitude of the participants.  The result showed that REBT is more effective in enhancing Regular teachers attitude towards learners with Visual impairment.  The use of REBT and self efficacy as effective behaviour modification therapies is in line with Beck and Ellis (2000) and Adeyemo (2007). 

 The two treatment were effective in enhancing better attitude of regular classroom teachers toward learners with Visual impairment.

Thus, the study has established that subjects treated with REBT were more responsive to treatment than those treated with self-efficacy.  Apparently in an earlier study, Osiki (1996) attested to the efficacy of REBT in modifying behaviour.

IMPLICATION OF FINDINGS

We cannot afford to side track learners with visual impairment under inclusive education.

This study should be of interest to stakeholders in education of learners with visual impairment, such as: teachers, parents, researchers, etc.

Capacity building should be designed for regular classroom teachers on methods and techniques of handling learners with visual impairment

 The society should be sensitized in order to change their attitudes towards persons with visual impairment. Such public enlightenment programme should be in form of seminars, workshops, media write-ups, jingles and other forms of publicity.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Regular Classroom teacher should be sensitized and exposed to the nitty-gritty in the education of learners with Visual impairment in the country.

Capacity Building Programmes should be organized for both the Special educators and Regular classroom teachers on Education of learners with Visual impairment.

 We are in the era of Inclusive Education, there should be Resource Room in all our institutions to cater for the education of learners with Visual impairment.

Braille Press should be established in each of the six Geo-political Zones of the country to see to the publication of various books into Braille for the use of learners with Visual impairment.

CONCLUSION

The findings revealed that regular classroom teachers find it extremely difficult to cope with methods of teaching learners with Visual Impairment in their classrooms.  It was also evident that Rational Emotive Behaviour and Self Efficacy techniques were potent therapies in enhancing positive attitude.  However, Rational Emotive Behaviour therapy was found to be more efficacious than Self efficacy in enhancing better attitude towards learners with Visual impairment.

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