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Size: 71.24 MB
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Category : Abused children
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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The following program of research used both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to explore teacher attitudes toward students who have been exposed to child abuse and/or maltreatment. The purpose of Study 1 was to determine if an existing measure for teacher attitudes could be adapted for use with teachers in reference to victims of maltreatment. The findings from Study 1 demonstrated weak and inconsistent factor loadings on a revised measurement of attitudes exploring the behavioural, cognitive, and affective attitude constructs. The inconsistent scale loadings were not representative of the pre-existing questionnaire’s factor construct, rendering the adapted version unreliable for the purpose of this dissertation. The purpose of Study 2 was to provide an in-depth understanding of teacher attitudes toward victims of maltreatment as a means of enhancing a standardized tool for use with this population of students. The qualitative results revealed several underlying thoughts and feelings from teachers toward child maltreatment victims that may be contributing to teacher attitudes beyond the basic attitude construct of behavioural, cognitive, and affective factors (i.e., fear, anxiety, stress, frustration). Several themes were uncovered in Study 2 that could influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of teachers including: organizational pressures, personal pressures, and the overall standardization of education by the educational era of modernism. The findings from both studies suggest that existing attitude measures would be inadequate and/or unreliable when trying to measure teacher attitudes toward this particular population of students given the unique needs, skills, and personal experiences of both the teachers and students.
