Teachers’ Experiences of Inclusion in Classroom Settings

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper education-2656766 entitled "Teachers' experiences of inclusion in classroom settings" analyzes teachers' perspectives on the inclusion of students with learning difficulties in Norwegian schools. It is an interesting and interesting analysis for the scientific community although it is too focused on a specific location and a specific difficulty, which reduces the extrapolation of data and conclusions to other areas.

The article presented should offer a much more specific research objective from its first lines in order to facilitate reading.

The justification of the study is not solvent in terms of its relevance, since in the document there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate and validate the importance of inclusion in the classroom as well as reference to other articles that address this or similar topics.

It is recommended to improve the introduction by developing much more the context and highlighting the importance of the research conducted in the field of education in relation to other studies already conducted.

The methodology described is simple; specific details on the development of the research are lacking, which would help to understand the process better and would prevent the reader from wondering about its validation, choice of centers, questions, etc.

The lack of precise and rigorous information on the methodology and the survey conducted raises concerns about the methodological quality of the study.

It is recommended that more information be provided and that all aspects of the process be detailed as well as that other similar studies be referenced in the document as a comparison for future conclusions and analysis of the results.

In the article, it is recommended that issues such as the impact of teaching strategies or the teachers' own experience be addressed. Since the paper focuses on the teachers' perspective, but does not analyze what teaching strategies they follow, which would help to validate whether the answers they have indicated in their questionnaires are really more or less thoughtful and sincere.

Likewise, although it is understood that obtaining data from their students is complicated, this aspect is not addressed in the article, neither in the difficulties raised nor in the previous statement of intent.

As for the wording of the article, there is repeated information such as in point 2.3. "All the questions used 5-point Likert scales" which appears in the same paragraph almost continuously.

Similar errors are found in the document which detracts from the seriousness and professionalism of the document.

In the future, it is recommended to add more questions on inclusion in order to validate the teachers' answers and their knowledge of the topic in question.

Overall, the paper has the potential to contribute to the field of inclusive education, but requires significant improvements in terms of methodology, presentation of results and discussion.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article presented is interesting. This study aimed to explore how teachers in Dyslexia Friendly Schools (DFS) perceive the inclusion and acceptance of their students by other students in different school levels (primary, secondary, and upper secondary) in Norway.

The introduction is well presented, the sources are well documented and although it goes back many years to old studies, these are necessary to know the current state of the matter. In this section some citations are detected that are not correct and must be improved.

Regarding the research questions and objectives, it should be better classified in the text since it is not made clear enough what its hypotheses or research questions are.

The methodology is well structured, its wording is simple and it contains all the elements that should make up this section.

The results are presented in an optimal way and are easily understandable.

The conclusion section is excessively short, oversimplifies the findings and fails to link to the research questions/objectives. I also recommend including a discussion subsection that will significantly enrich the results. In addition to other subsections in which the limitations of the research and its prospective are exposed, to know what the next step of the researchers will be regarding the topic addressed.

Bibliographic references are relevant and correct.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

1.     I applaud setting up studies about the beliefs of teachers in relation to inclusion of dyslexia children.

2.     In the abstract, the research problem is stated as “The aim of the study was to examine How teachers at Dyslexia friendly schools (DFS) feel their students are being included and accepted by other students in class, and do these feelings differ between teachers that work in primary school, secondary school and upper secondary school. “
I don’t understand why the differences between the school levels is a part of the research problem in this study. In know that around line 137 the authors write the following: “Rodden et al. [34] point out that previous research has largely focused on primary and special schools. Few studies have examined teacher`s at ordinary school, and their perceptions of whether students are being included in different school levels, as primary school, secondary school, and upper secondary school.”
But this gives no rationale as to why differences are to be expected. We need a theoretical base to ground the research questions; this could be grounded in the professional knowledge of teachers at different levels (building on the PCK framework) or it could be based on different ways of “noticing” because of different teacher education backgrounds.   Or, the differences could be grounded in the children themselves or the curriculum. Now, the levels in the study are simply covariables and are as such not meaningful. It is surprising that such assumptions are not being put forward. The discussion section includes some post hoc explanations to help understanding why primary school teachers are more geared to inclusive education.

3.     But, the authors put forward one theoretical framework that could be of relevance in line 62: “From a theoretical point of view, inclusion can be viewed in the light of self- determination theory (SDT). SDT points to three basic needs important for all humans; in which relatedness is one basic need, and competence and autonomy are the other two (…)”.   I agree that this theory could be of relevance. But this theory disappears completely from the article after it was written down. The theory is not linked to the expected differences between educational levels. This is not transferred into specific research questions, specific questions in the research instruments.
The same applies to other elements that are being put forward as “theoretical”; e.g., “increased ine-80 quality in education.”. This is not explained in terms of mechanisms that make teachers different, I don’t see this mirrored in the research instruments and the analysis approach.

Also line 101 offers a promising start: “teachers' attitudes about and perspectives 101 on inclusive education, as the most successful factors according to implementation of inclusive education.”  But what theory is this?  And is this actually tested in terms of research questions, the way questions have been developed?

4.     The above implies that the study does look at the way inclusive education is practiced, accepted, carried out … in a very static way. Teachers to not design and implement education out of the bleu. The title of the article mentions teacher experiences. This implies that these experiences are mechanisms in a dynamic  process that influences teachers on the base of their professional knowledge. This drives their self-efficacy, attitudes ... And key is the school policy in this dynamic process. The social mechanisms of a policy towards inclusion, the teamwork … also affect teachers’ inclusive education. The success and outcomes of this work will next be the input for their further involvement in inclusive education.
So, I challenge the authors to adopt such a dynamic approach towards teachers and the way they function, work, evolve.  The current paper misses out on state-of-the-art approaches towards teachers, teachers professional functioning and the way they evolve on the job. Again, theoretical models can be used to underpin this dynamic approach, e.g., theory of planned behavior, job satisfaction theory,  

5.     The above questions the way the study was set up. The questions about the focus of teachers towards inclusive education should normally contain elements that help testing assumptions about the underlying mechanisms, the theories, the frameworks.

6.     The article hardly adopts a multilevel perspective. It all seems dependent on the individual teacher. SDT is a useful theory, but misses out on the impact of teacher development, teamwork, teacher professional development, co-creation, school policies, staffing approaches to deal with inclusion …  I really miss this school or systems level information to understand why teachers are depicted as such in the article.   In line 125 there is an opening to find such school level explanatory frameworks when the authors write “Their findings showed that satisfactory inclusive practices depended on close collaboration.”.  But this is not elaborated as an explanatory framework.

7.     I do not agree that the literature dominantly points at the individual teacher being the key factor in the adoption of inclusive practices (see line 110: “However, he found that the key result according to teachers’ role in students social inclusion depends, above all, on the teachers themselves, their characteristics, and their participation in joint activities.”.  It is correct to state that in the end the individual teacher takes action. But this depends in schools largely on the social setting as mirrored in school policies, school professional development, school collaborative work. I refrain from putting forward some key publications. 
Missing out on the school level is clearly mirrored in the research methodology and the rationale for sampling. Individual teachers are then based for the sampling framework and not schools or school systems.

8.     The above results in a disconnection between the theoretical base and the research design. For instance, the researchers ask questions about the number of friends that children have with dyslexia. This suggests that “learners having friends”’ plays a role in the actual practices and experiences of teachers and that this affects their practices?  The link with “having friends” is not present in the theoretical base.

9.     I expect that the authors will point out that I read their article in the wrong way: it is about the children and not about the teachers. But… the research is set up by involving teachers and you ask their perceptions, their opinion, their experiences. And the theoretical base is sometimes geared to the teachers and not to the learners. So I get confused as to the overall design of the study. When I read the literature about inclusive education, there are plenty examples of studies that start from studying students’ experiences. These also introduce a specific theoretical framework to study lived experiences, identity theory …   And of course, focusing on students will also require the rationale to explain the expectations about differences between school levels. Again, the authors refer to elements of such theory when they write in line 90-…: “inclusion, students with SEN are a vulnerable group according to social inclusion, because students with SEN seems to have low levels of confidence and self-esteem” .

10.  The authors have to acknowledge that they themselves create confusions in the theoretical and conceptual section by continuously jumping between the perspective of the teachers and the perspective of the learners.  For instance, the section about SDT, can be completely read from the perspective of the teachers or the students. And the text from line 76 on, even adds to this confusion: “We will argue that both the experience 76 of social inclusion according to the teachers and other students, and the experience of inclusion according to work in the classroom, is related to the sense of belonging and attachment to other people, and that such experiences will increase the feeling of relatedness. “.

11.  A last remark is about the sampling. With a response rate of only 17%, it is very difficult to state: “The participants distribution of; gender, years of teaching experience, education and education levels, and teaching subjects, most likely reflects the actual distribution 168 in Norwegian schools.”  This would require a test of the sample versus a sampling framework that mirrors the data structure in the population.

Author Response

Thank you for the time. See our comments

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper education-2656766 whose title is "Teachers' experiences of inclusion in classroom settings" has satisfactorily addressed most of the recommendations of the previous review. The new article has gained in clarity and quality thanks to the improvements made. Every aspect of the article, a reorganized introduction and rationale for the study, a more detailed methodology, and a more focused discussion and conclusions have made this study substantially better. 

Although it still has details to be improved, and aspects of the previous review that have not been fully addressed, some aspects because it was impossible to address due to the lack of such information and others by decision of the authors, I consider that the article has a valid format to be published in its current version.

I recommend the acceptance of the article for publication.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your suggestions. The article has been proofreaded by a professional proofreader (540 dollar), and has been much better I think.

Reviewer 3 Report

Respected authors,

Thank you for your revised version. I could observe a high investment in revising and upgrading the quality of the manuscript.

- I appreciate the efforts made to ground the assumptions about differences between educational levels, when it comes to teachers.

- I agree with the new version of the general research problem (line 915). - The link with the SDT is now clear.

- Thank you for explaining the design of the research instrument.

Some remaining issues:

- Check the text in terms of the English language. Maybe due to textual changes, some errors are now observed. This happens throughout the text. Normally this can be controlled with a grammar check. Often sentences sound incomplete or the verb is not correct.

* "We argue that teachers working in primary school have a greater focus upon inclusion in their teacher education, that it is a lower number of SEN students at 15 primary school, and that students at secondary school experiences biological and cultural changes 16 that may affect their inclusion."  Strange sentence structure. Better to split the sentence up into separate sentences that each express a key idea.

* "Taking previous research into account, we argue that in relation to 17 inclusion at class, the teacher`s role and behavior is of main importance.3  What does "at class mean"?

* "We have argued that social inclusion in class touch upon the most important social aspects of human life"  ....  should be "touches"

*  "Furthermore, personal changes in relation to maturing and puberty occurring during the three years at secondary school (age .....".

- Check spacing "relatedness as one mainbasic need,"

- In the discussion section, the following title is phrased strangely, and shouldn't it be put in italics? "High assessed inclusion of students with SEN"

The same applies to the second title "Most experienced inclusion at primary school"  I think this is better phrased as "Inclusion is mostly observed in primary schools".

Author Response

Thank you very much for your suggestions. The article has been rewritten according to your comments. The article has also been proofreaded by a professional proofreader (540 dollar), and has been much better I think.