Journal of Educational Sciences > Volume 11, No. 2, 1999

The Factorial Validity of the Attitudes towards a Mainstreaming Scale / Abdulaziz A bduljabbar

The eighteen-item attitude mainstreaming scale , ATMS,  was cross validated before administration to a Saudi Arabian sample of 510 principals and teachers of both special education and regular education. Principal components followed by varimax rotation yielded the same four factors found in the development sample. Internal consistency reliability estimates of factor based subscale ranged from .64 - .89 with a total scale reliability of .87. Subscale intercorrelation ranged from .54 - .84 . Principals and teachers showed agreement towards mainstreaming students with diabetes, students who have stuttering problems, students with physical disabilities, mildly visually or hearing impaired students, students with behavioral disorders, students who present persistent discipline problems, students with speech difficulty, and students with epilepsy. Results showed significant differences towards mainstreaming students with disabilities attributed to degree type. specialization and school type, be it special education or regular school .