Asia Pacific Educ. Rev.
(2013) 14:337–344
DOI 10.1007/s12564-013-9263-z
Measuring perceived school support for inclusive education
in Bangladesh: the development of a context-specific scale
Masud Ahmmed
Received: 5 September 2012 / Revised: 30 April 2013 / Accepted: 11 May 2013 / Published online: 22 May 2013
 Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2013
Abstract International studies have identified that
teachers require adequate support, including human and
material resources, if they are to successfully implement
inclusive education (IE) in regular classes. Past research
shows that the level of support teachers feel they are
receiving, from members of the school community and in
the provision of appropriate teaching resources and train-
ing, may influence their attitudes towards IE and their
willingness to undertake IE. Conceptualizing perceived
school support as a subjective norm within the theory of
planned behaviour, a context-specific, ‘Perceived School
Support for Inclusive Education’ (PSSIE) scale was
developed to measure teachers’ perceptions of support.
This paper reports the development process of the PSSIE
scale which included item generation, content validation
and statistical procedures. Using a four-stage sampling
method, a sample of 1,387 primary school teachers from
the Dhaka Division of Bangladesh was selected for this
study. The results provide preliminary evidence that the
PSSIE (with eight items) meets the standards for reliability
and, thus, presents as a useful scale by which to measure
teachers’ perceptions of school support for implementing
IE. The paper also illustrates limitations and direction for
further studies.
Keywords Inclusive education
Teachers’ perception

School support
Measure
Primary education
in Bangladesh
M. Ahmmed (&)
Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
e-mail: masud.ahmmed@monash.edu; masuddh@yahoo.com
Introduction
Over the years, promoting inclusion of children with diverse
learning needs, including children with disabilities, in reg-
ular schools has been an educational policy initiative in the
majority of developing nations (Sharma et al. 2013; Singal
2005). The key international conventions and declarations
underpinning this policy initiative include the Convention
on the Rights of the Child (UN 1989), the Convention on the
Rights of Person with Disabilities (UN Enable 2008), the
World Declaration on Education for All (UNESCO 1990),
the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on
Special Needs Education (UNESCO 1994), the Dakar
Framework for Action (UNESCO 2000), and the Millen-
nium Development Goals (UN 2000). Most South Asian
countries, including Bangladesh, like other developing
countries across the world, have undertaken education
policy reform to implement the principles of inclusive
education (IE) as a key strategy to achieve the ‘education
for all’ milestone (DPE 2011). Bangladesh has initiated
policies such as the National Education Policy 2010 and a
series of Primary Education Development Programs (e.g.,
PEDP II and III) to meet its constitutional obligations to
provide a uniform, mass-oriented and universal system of
education as well as its international commitments to edu-
cating all school-aged children within the mainstream
education system. These efforts have contributed significant
momentum to the initiatives towards progressing student
enrolment and achieving gender parity in primary education
in Bangladesh, achieving, for example, a 98.7 % enrolment
rate (girls 99.4 % and boys 97.2 %) (DPE 2012). IE is still
at a very early stage of implementation in Bangladesh, as it
is in the majority of South Asian countries, and the headway
being made is occurring in the face of many hurdles and
challenges (Sharma et al. 2013). A number of recent studies
123
338
in different South Asian and Asia Pacific countries (e.g.,
Ahsan et al. 2012; Hassan et al. 2010; Lamichhane 2012;
Mullick et al. 2012) have identified some of the challenges.
Teacher training for IE in a developing country, for
instance, has been found to be ‘tokenistic at best and non-
existent at worst’ (Forlin 2012, p. 4). Hassan et al. (2010)
found that implementing IE in overcrowded general classes
in Pakistan became a stressful job for teachers who operated
without even the minimum required support and resources.
In addition to regional studies, international studies (e.g.,
Avramidis et al. 2000; Subban and Sharma 2005) also
maintain that, despite having positive willingness, teachers
are expressing their concerns about the lack of training
opportunities and inadequate support and resources avail-
able to them as they respond to the diversity now in
inclusive classrooms (Avramidis and Norwich 2002;
Coutsocostas and Alborz 2010; Leung and Mak 2010;
Oswald and Swart 2011; Wilde and Avramidis 2011).
In order to implement IE, teachers need to feel supported.
For this, teachers require adequate human and material
resources to enable the performance of inclusive teaching
practices (Eloff and Kgwete 2007). Conditions reported to
be important to them include adequate help from principals,
colleagues, special education teachers, and parents (Heiman
2001). The conditions cited also include appropriate train-
ing in IE and instructional resources. Studies have found
that teachers’ attitudes towards performing IE have been
significantly influenced by the level and type of support
available to them (Vanderpuye et al. 2006), with inadequate
support and training associated with unfavourable attitudes
towards IE (Campbell et al. 2003; Thomas 1985). A large-
scale, cross-national study in both the northern and southern
hemispheres identified collaboration, teacher training and
levels of support services as the challenging domains for
implementing inclusive classrooms practices (Peters 2003).
Study suggested that insufficient support may lead teachers
to experience excessive stress and leave the teaching pro-
fession altogether (Brackenreed 2011).
While school support is highly important for teachers
when introducing IE into the general classroom, it is
imperative that educators and policy makers better under-
stand the actual dynamics underpinning the ways in which
teachers perceive levels of school support. Such an
understanding can help the stakeholders in education assess
existing school supports and construct well-informed plans
towards improving teachers’ perception of school support,
thereby increasing successful implementation of IE prac-
tices into general classes. Since perceived school support
cannot be observed directly, self-report is required to
measure it. However, currently, there are no scales that
have been developed to systematically measure teachers’
perceptions of having such support for implementing IE in
regular classrooms in developing countries as Bangladesh.
123
M. Ahmmed
Given the dearth of such a scale and the anticipated out-
comes of such an instrument in furthering IE, and taking
into account that scale items are a well-established means
to establish a construct assessment (DeVellis 2003), it was
found timely and appropriate to develop an instrument for
measuring teachers’ perception of school support. Conse-
quently, this study developed an instrument specifically for
measuring the school support teachers perceive to be
available to them when implementing inclusive teaching
practises in their classrooms. Continuing to apply this
instrument in Bangladesh will benefit IE reform by pro-
viding the means by which to inform and assist policy
makers and practitioners by evaluating teachers’ percep-
tions of the degree of support they receive.
Conceptual framework
In this study, perceived school support for IE has been
conceptualized as belonging to the subjective norms con-
struct within the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen
1991). According to TPB, the intention towards performing
a behaviour is determined by three constructs: (1) the
person’s attitudes towards the behaviour, (2) the subjective
norms surrounding the performance of the behaviour, and
(3) perceived behavioural control. Ajzen (1991) explains
subjective norms as apparent social pressures surrounding
an individual that influence decisions whether or not to
accomplish behaviour. TPB denotes that perceptions of the
prevailing conditions for an effective behaviour—sub-
jective norms—impact on the perceiver’s attempts to
engage in performing the behaviour. As a part of a larger
study, this paper reports the development of an instrument,
PSSIE, with the recognition of perceived school support for
inclusive education as a subjective norm of the TPB model.
Method
The PSSIE instrument development procedure involved a
number of steps including item generation, content vali-
dation of the items, and statistical procedure for data
analysis.
Generating an item pool for a scale
Considering that all items of a scale should reflect the
latent variable that the scale aims to address (DeVellis
2003), an item pool was generated by reviewing contem-
porary related literature. At the outset, relevant literature
was searched for identifying items for potential pool. Four
databases (i.e., ERIC, ProQuest, PsycINFO, and Web of
Knowledge) were employed to locate appropriate articles
for review using a number of key words (e.g., IE, inclusion,
The development of a context-specific scale
students with disabilities, school support). Selection crite-
ria included peer-reviewed articles, written in English, with
information related to school support for implementing IE
in classroom practices. After careful consideration of the
search results, 28 journal articles were selected as most
pertinent for review. In addition, a number of relevant
reports (e.g., UNICEF 2003) were selected for review. A
pool of items with 14 statements was produced for mea-
suring perceived school support for IE variable, consider-
ing the discourse of the publications and the author’s own
contextual experiences (see Table 1).
During this item generation stage, the immediate rele-
vancy of the items, with regard to IE, was checked in
consultation with three academics familiar with the Ban-
gladeshi context.
Response format
At this point, each of the item statement was formatted
using a 5-point Likert-type scale format, with labels
ranging from none at all (1) to a great deal (5). All items
were positively worded and started with as follows: ‘I
receive support…’. This pattern for the item was used to
avoid possible problems of internal consistency, factor
structures, and other statistics associated with negatively
worded items (Barnette 2000; Pilotte and Gable 1990). It
Table 1 Item pool for measuring perceived school support for inclusive education
No. Items
1 I receive support from the principal to implement inclusive
education at the classroom level
2 I receive training in inclusive education/special education needs
3 I receive support from the school management committee
to implement inclusive education in the regular classroom
4 I receive support to develop skills in various therapeutic
interventions, such as music therapy, play therapy, and art therapy
5 I receive support from the family of the child/children with
disabilities to implement inclusive education in classrooms
6 I receive support by the curriculum board to introduce flexible
curriculum to address all learners
7 I receive support to get classrooms’ physical layouts adapted
to inclusive education
8 I receive support from the families of the children without
disabilities to implement inclusive education in classrooms
9 I receive teaching resources from the school to teach students
with disabilities
10 I receive support from specialist teachers when needed
11 I receive support from colleagues to implement inclusive
education in the classrooms
12 I receive support from the local community to implement IE
13 I receive support to observe other teachers who teach students
with special needs/disabilities
14 I receive support for implementing new teaching strategies
339
was considered that scales with five to seven steps would
be most reliable (Gable and Wolf 1993) and responses
directed from the lower to the higher pole a very useful
approach (Spector 1992).
Content validation of the selected items
At the onset of content validation, all items were translated
into the Bangla language to maintaining cultural appro-
priateness of this instrument in the Bangladeshi context.
Two independent translators were asked to translate the
instrument into Bangla. The author of this paper (who is
expert in both Bangla and English) prepared the final
version of the translation, after reviewing the initial two
sets of translations and discussing any discrepancy with the
translators (McGorry 2000).
All items were reviewed individually by a panel of
twelve people comprising academics, school principal,
teacher, education officer, educational policy maker, and a
parent of a student with disability, all well acquainted with
inclusive education in Bangladesh, to maximize the
appropriateness of the items for the domain of interest
(DeVellis 2003). The panel was asked to evaluate each
item and provide comments on the appropriateness in the
context of Bangladesh and on the item’s clarity. On the
basis of their feedback, six items (item no 4, 6, 7, 12, 13,
Key references
Brownell and Pajares (1999), Sharma and Chow (2008)
Villa and Thousand (2003)
Avramidis et al. (2000), Forlin (2011)
UNICEF (2003)
Leung and Mak (2010)
Coutsocostas and Alborz (2010), Milner and Hoy (2003),
Yssel et al. (2007)
Norwich (2007), Sapon-Shevin (2007)
Esteve et al. (1994), Pivik et al. (2002)
de Boer et al. (2010), Palmer et al. (2001)
Chhabra et al. (2010), Coskun et al. (2009)
Coutsocostas and Alborz (2010)
Borko (2004), Chester and Beaudin (1996),
Harrison (2005), Wiliam and Thompson (2008)
UNESCO (1994)
Theoharis and Causton-Theoharis (2011), Wang (2002)
Jager (2011)
123
340
and 14) were deleted on the grounds that they would be
inappropriate from a contextual perspective and few items
were rephrased for better clarity, with regard to contextual
language. The final version of the PSSIE scale consisted of
eight items that were hypothesized to measure the con-
struct, ‘perceived school support for IE’. The eight-item
PSSIE scale was then employed for data collection with the
participants of the study.
Four-stage sampling
A four-stage sampling procedure was used to select par-
ticipants for this study. After obtaining the necessary ethics
approval in Australia and Bangladesh, Dhaka, the central
regional and administrative division of the country, was
selected for data collection. The reason for selecting the
central division was the maximization of availability of
schools representing urban, semi-urban, and rural locations
of the country. In the second stage, one sub-district from
each of the urban and semi-urban, and two from rural
locations were randomly selected. The number of sub-
districts selected was approximately proportional to the
total number of sub-districts at the three locations in Dhaka
division (urban, semi-urban, and rural). In the third stage,
all public primary schools (293) located in these four sub-
districts were selected and, in the final stage, all in-service
teachers (1,387) were invited to respond to the survey
questions. A total of 1,387 survey questionnaires were sent
out, of which 738 were returned. From the returned ques-
tionnaires, a total of 30 were discarded because of a large
amount of missing data. Consequently, the final number of
respondents used in the study was 708.
Statistical analysis
To determine whether all items share a common latent
variable, a number of procedures including Cronbach’s
coefficient alpha and item means were undertaken. As
factor analysis is a part of the scale development process
(DeVellis 2003), factorability of the data was computed
prior to factor analysis by employing Bartlett’s test of
sphericity and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of
sampling adequacy (Pallant 2010). Given that the factor
structure of PSSIE was not previously known, rather than
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Exploratory Factor
Analysis (EFA) (using SPSS version 19) was employed to
identify the latent factor structure of the scale (Byrne
2010). However, the number of factors retained was
determined utilizing a series of additional procedures
including eigenvalue [1, scree plotting, and parallel anal-
ysis (PA) (Henson and Roberts 2006). Moreover, factors
were extracted using principal components analysis (PCA)
123
M. Ahmmed
to get an empirical summary of the data set (Tabachnick
and Fidell 2007).
Results
Demographics of the participants
The participants consisted of 708 primary school teachers
in Bangladesh with a gender composition of 60.6 % female
and 39.4 % male. The mean age of the participant was
39.34 years. With regard to educational status, 29.8 % of
respondents held below bachelor degrees, 43.2 % held
bachelor degrees, and 27 % held degrees of masters level
or above. In terms of previous contact with a student with
disability in the classroom, nearly half (49.2 %) of the
participants reported having experienced such contact.
With regard to receiving previous training in IE, 46.9 %
had completed one module of training and 5.8 % had taken
two or more modules, while 47.3 % had not had any such
training.
Item analysis and reliability measurement
Prior to undertaking any further measures, reliability was
estimated with Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, showing a
very satisfactory alpha of 0.86. This indicates a high level
of inter-item consistency, well above the 0.70 that is gen-
erally regarded as acceptable (Gable and Wolf 1993).
The mean inter-item correlation of PSSIE was found to
be 0.43, with values ranging from 0.29 to 0.59. To
understand the internal consistency of the scale items more
comprehensively, an inter-item correlation matrix was
calculated. The value for each item was found to be posi-
tive, indicating that the items were measuring the same
underlying characteristic. The corrected item-total corre-
lation values for all items shown in the item-total statistics
were found to be much above 0.30, indicating acceptability
of the items and their direction in measuring the same
latent construct of the scale, as a whole (Nunnally and
Bernstein 1994; Pallant 2010).
The next stage involved checking the items for very
low and high means and very small standard deviations.
Since a 5-point Likert-type scale was used, higher means
signify greater levels of perceived support for imple-
menting inclusive practices in the classroom. In this
scale, item means were found to range from 1.88 to 2.97
with a mean of 2.41. The mean-standard deviation for all
items was 1.29, the lowest being 1.18, and the highest,
1.39. Since there was no significant outlier of any
notable kind, all (eight) items were retained for further
analysis.
The development of a context-specific scale 341

Factor analysis

Determining the character of latent variables underpinning

the item set of a measure is crucial (DeVellis 2003); hence,
factor analysis was utilized to explore the dimensionality of
the PSSIE scale.

Examining the factorability of the data

Prior to employing the factor analysis procedure, the suit-

ability of data for this analysis was checked. Scrutiny of the
correlation matrix revealed that the value of almost all of
the coefficients was above 0.30, indicating the data’s
suitability (Pallant 2010). The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin
(KMO) measure of sampling adequacy index was found to
be 0.9, well above the recommended value of 0.6 (Kaiser
1974). Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity yielded a highly sig- Fig. 1 Plot of the eigenvalues (Scree test)
nificant result (p \ .001), suggesting the factorability of the
correlation matrix (Pallant 2010). Taken together, these
results supported the acceptability for factor analysis of the
Exploratory factor analysis
matrix (Tabachnick and Fidell 2007).
The results of PCA revealed the presence of one com-
ponent with eigenvalues surpassing 1, explaining 50.28 %
Table 2 Component matrix, communality coefficient, and reliability of the variance. The result of the scree plot (see Fig. 1)
statistics for the 8 items in the PSSIE scale (N = 708)
supported the one-factor solution of PCA analysis. The
Item Statements (referring to Factor loadings (I) output of the component matrix (all items with values
number participant—sentence stem
is ‘‘I receive support…’’) Component Communality 0.62 and above loaded on component 1) (refer to Table 2)
matrix coefficient further confirmed the one-factor solution for the PSSIE
(extracted)
scale.
1 Receive necessary support from the 0.68 0.47
principal to implement inclusive
education at the classroom level Parallel analysis
2 Receive regular in-service training in 0.66 0.43
teaching students with diverse
needs/disabilities
In addition to the use of PCA and scree plot, parallel
3 Receive support from the school 0.80 0.63 analysis using a software program (i.e., Watkins 2000)
management committee (SMC) to was also undertaken to determine the number of com-
implement inclusive education in ponents, as this is more robust and accurate compared to
the school
4 Receive support from peer colleagues 0.74 0.54
PCA and scree plot tests (Henson and Roberts 2006). The
to implement inclusive education in results showed that only the first component exceeded the
my school corresponding criterion value obtained from parallel
5 Receive support from the family of 0.77 0.60 analysis (Watkins 2000) for a randomly generated data
the child/children with disabilities
to implement inclusive education in matrix of the sample size (8 variables x 708 respondents).
my school The eigenvalue for the first component in the actual data
6 Receive support from the families of 0.75 0.57 was larger (4.02) than those for the random data (1.15),
the children without disabilities to
implement inclusive education in
while the eigenvalue for the second factor in the actual
my school data set was smaller (0.81) than that for the random data
7 Receive necessary resources from the 0.62 0.39 set (1.10), indicating a one-factor solution (refer to
school to teach students with
Table 3).
special needs/disabilities when
needed (such as Braille for blind In order to reconfirm the structure of the latent variable
students) for the PSSIE scale, the factor analysis was run, specifying
8 Receive support from specialist 0.63 0.40 the extraction of one component. The result of the Oblimin
teacher when needed
rotation indicated that no rotation was executed as all eight
Alpha coefficients 0.86
items significantly loaded on a single factor.

123
342 M. Ahmmed

Table 3 Comparisons of eigenvalues from PCA analysis and the regions, and departments differ from each other in terms of
corresponding criterion values obtained using parallel analysis teachers’ perceptions of support. Stakeholders of IE would
Component Actual Criterion value Decision then be able to use this information to take appropriate
number eigenvalues from parallel action at the school, district, regional, and national level to
from PCA analysis ensure teachers both feel supported and are, in fact, sup-
1 4.022 1.15 Accepted ported, leading to more successful, effective outcomes for
2 0.81 1.10 Rejected IE.
3 0.70 1.05 Rejected
4 0.66 1.02 Rejected
Appendix: Perceived School Support for Inclusive
Education (PSSIE) scale

Conclusion Instruction: This scale is about examining how much

school support you receive in order to include children with
Studies have shown school support to be an important diverse needs/disabilities in your classrooms. Please read
variable in the execution of inclusive teaching practices, as each of the following statements carefully and rate the
well as an influence on teacher attitudes towards inclusion support you receive in your respective situation. Please
(e.g., Horne and Timmons 2009) and on teacher efficacy in circle the most appropriate number that corresponds to
implementation (e.g., Sharma et al. 2012). This paper your answer.
reports the development of an instrument to measure Please attempt to answer each question.
teachers’ perceptions of degree of school support for
implementing inclusive practices in regular schools in
Bangladesh. Designing such a scale was deemed necessary
to systematically scrutinize and evaluate the construct 1 None at 2 Minimal 3 Hardly 4 Adequate 5 A great
‘perceived school support’. The initial findings from the all (NAA) (M) adequate (A) deal
data of this study indicate that the PSSIE scale1 promises to (HA) (AGD)
be a useful tool for measuring Bangladeshi teachers’ per- NAA M HA A AGD
ception of school support while executing IE in their
classrooms. However, a possible limitation of this study is I receive necessary support from 1 2 3 4 5
the principal to implement
that the data collection occurred in only one division in inclusive education at the
Bangladesh, Dhaka, with no external data gathered. It classroom level
would be useful to undertake further qualitative research I receive regular in-service training 1 2 3 4 5
because teachers’ perceptions may vary, not only about in teaching students with diverse
the existence of the resources, but also their expectations needs/disabilities
of resources and the extent to which they avail them- I receive support from the school 1 2 3 4 5
management committee (SMC)
selves of these resources. Such research would provide to implement inclusive education
useful insights into stakeholders, so they can improve not in the school
only the resources, but also teachers’ knowledge and use of I receive support from peer 1 2 3 4 5
them. colleagues to implement
Since teachers have been recognized as primary key inclusive education in my school
players in implementing inclusive education practices I receive support from the family 1 2 3 4 5
of child/children with disabilities
(Forlin and Chambers 2011; Savolainen et al. 2012) and
to implement inclusive education
‘‘inclusive education is perceived as an optimization of the in my school
use of resources’’ (UNESCO 2008, p. 9), understanding the I receive support from the families 1 2 3 4 5
way teachers discern support from their schools would be of children without disabilities to
useful for the successful operation of IE at the classroom implement inclusive education in
my school
level. If this scale is used widely, variations in the extent to
which teachers feel supported may also be identified. This I receive necessary resources from 1 2 3 4 5
the school to teach students with
knowledge can help stakeholders of education in Bangla- special needs/disabilities when
desh identify critical ways in which individual schools, needed (such as Braille for blind
students)
I receive support from specialist 1 2 3 4 5
teacher when needed
1
A sample of the PSSIE scale is in the ‘‘Appendix’’.

123
The development of a context-specific scale
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