Inclusion and standards achievement: the presence of pupils identified as having special needs as a moderating effect on the national mathematics standards achievements of their classmates

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between the achievement level of students in classes and the presence of students identified as having special needs in inclusive settings. In particular, it examines whether the presence of students with special educational needs in inclusive classrooms has an effect on the national mathematics standards achievement of their fellow students. In order to do so, the national standard scores of approximately 75,000 fourth graders in mathematics were used as dependent variable in multi-level regression modelling. As independent variables at class level the number of students with special needs and at the individual level socioeconomic , cultural and ethnic background variables were used together with gender and age. Results show only a very small effect of the presence of students with special needs on the national mathematics standard scores of their classmates. The effect can be either positive or negative depending on further class conditions.

The presence of students identified as having special needs as a moderating effect on their classmates’ reading comprehension scores in relation to other major class composition effects

“…As this relationship tends to be negative, hypothesis (i.b) must be rejected. These results are comparable to the small effects revealed by Krammer et al (2019), who found both weak positive and weak negative effects for mathematics standard achievements depending on the exact number of students with SEN in a certain class. Additionally, these results do not contradict those of the recent meta-analysis from Szumski, Smogorzewska, and Karwowski (2017), who found a very weak (d = .12) positive effect on the academic achievement of students without SEN in inclusive settings.…”

“…Following Krammer et al (2019), the initial calculations were carried out with the Rpackage BIFIESurvey at a subsample of approximately 4500 students from 250 classes in 218 schools. The generated R-code was then sent to the BIFIE/IQS and applied to the complete data set.…”

“…Moreover, decomposition of variance of fixed and random effects is considered between and within levels. For the full mathematical definition of the models used in this study, see Krammer et al (2019) or Robitzsch and Oberwimmer (2016).…”

“…The Federal Institute for Research and Development in Education in Austria collected and evaluated the test data (BIFIE: Bundesinstitut für Bildungsforschung, Innovation & Entwicklung des österreichischen Schulwesens Breit et al,, 2016). In order to allow for further analysis, the anonymised data set can be obtained by researchers from BIFIE/IQS (as done in Krammer et al 2019 and in the present study). More information about the BIFIE and the used dataset is also available under following link: www.iqs.gv.at/fdb/bist.…”

“…Most studies, however, do not support this view. Different scholars report either positive effects of inclusive schooling on students without SEN (Cosier, Causton-Theoharis, and Theoharis 2013;Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin 2002) or no significant effect of the presence of students with SEN on the academic achievement of their peers (Farrell et al 2007;Gebhardt, Heine, and Sälzer 2015;Krammer et al 2019;Ruijs, Van Der Veen, and Peetsma 2010). The positive or neutral effects of inclusion seem to outweigh negative effects.…”