Not a Long Shot Anymore: Gearing Towards Development of Intervention Program for Enhancing General Education Learners’ Relationship with Special Needs Education Learners

Abstract

The study targeted to examine the manifestations of behavior of general education learners toward special needs education learners along cognitive understanding, behavioral intent, and affective response; to evaluate an inclusive classroom ambassador program developed through the ADDIE model; and to assess the effectiveness of how peer-led interventions could improve behavioral inclusion. A descriptive-evaluative research design was implored and 48 Grade Four to Six learners were involved in a month-long peer-led intervention that included ambassador selection and training, peer cascading, as well as an inclusive awareness day, which occurred over a duration of four weeks from February to March 2025. Measuring attitudes prior to and after the program, the Chedoke-McMaster Attitudes Towards Children with Handicaps Scale (CATCH) was implemented, as well as identifying changes to attitudes using Descriptive Statistics and the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test. Results indicated that there was a strong cognitive understanding of special needs education learners at baseline (M = 2.46) but that no significant improvement was demonstrated with post-test data (M = 2.46, p = .144). However, there was a significant improvement in behavioral intent from pre-test (M = 2.04) to post-test (M = 2.36) (p < .001) and that affective response scores increased slightly but not significantly from pre-test (M = 2.06) to post-test (M = 2.11) (p = .611). Overall, the program increased prosocial behavior, peer support and inclusionary, inclusive practices in the classroom, along with improved student ambassadors' leadership and communication capabilities. However, based on this study, further research is required to continue understanding the effectiveness of peer-led inclusion programs in improving behavioral inclusion, and that additional factors may need to be considered such as longer-duration or more intensive interventions that bring about changes to affective attitudes.