Attitudes of General Education Teachers and Learning Difficulties Teachers Towards Participatory Teaching for Elementary School Pupils in The Eastern Province

Abstract

      The objective of this research is to identify the attitudes of general education teachers and learning difficulties teachers towards participatory teaching at the Eastern Province elementary level schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Also, the extent to which these attitudes differ according to gender, the number of experience years, and teacher specialization. The researcher adopted the descriptive approach and designed a questionnaire. The research sample consisted of (402) male and female teachers of general education teachers and learning difficulties teachers at elementary schools in the Eastern Province, which were chosen using the simple random approach. The results showed that there are high positive attitudes among general education teachers and learning difficulties teachers towards participatory teaching. Moreover, the results indicated that there are differences in the attitudes of males and females' teachers in favor of female teachers, and the results confirmed that there are no statistically significant differences to the following variables: years of experience and teacher specialization.The researcher made some recommendations based on the results of the research including encouraging the Ministry of Education to implement participatory teaching for the elementary level to alleviate the burden of the general education teacher. This enables the learning difficulties teacher to provide support to all pupils in the classroom; also, ensures that any pupil with learning difficulties receives education with his peers inside the regular classroom without being isolated in the resource room. For future studies, the researcher proposed to provide training programs for teachers on how to practice participatory teaching in regular classes.