Inclusion is an international trend, and means that all children learn together in the same classrooms, regardless of the presence of a disability. Attitudes, sentiments, and concerns are variables which have been found to influence the success of inclusion. There is a need, then, for the development of a concise tool for measuring these. This paper describes the development of an improved scale for measuring sentiments, attitudes and concerns about inclusive education in pre-service teachers, based on an examination of data gathered from 996 pre-service teachers from five tertiary institutions using a modified version of the Interactions with People with Disabilities scale (Forlin, Jobling & Carroll, 2001; Gething, 1991, 1994), the Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale (Sharma & Desai, 2002), and the Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education Scale (Wilczenski, 1992, 1995). The scale has been developed with international use in mind, and the sample includes pre-service teachers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Canada. Based on the statistical results, conceptual judgments, and a critique of content and format from an "expert group", a new scale, the Sentiments, Attitudes and Concerns about Inclusive Education scale (SACIE), is developed. The rationale behind the development of the scale is discussed.

This paper reports the final development of a scale to measure pre-service teachers' perceptions in three constructs of inclusive education, namely, sentiments or comfort levels when engaging with people with disabilities; acceptance of learners with different needs; and concerns about implementing inclusion. The Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised (SACIE-R) scale was developed from an initial 60 items and administered through a series of refined surveys. A final 15-item scale was validated using 542 pre-service teachers from nine institutions in four countries including Hong Kong, Canada, India, and the United States. It is posited that the SACIE-R scale will yield valuable information for assisting universities and colleges in preparing more specific training to address the needs of pre-service teachers for working with diverse student populations.
[Copyright © Western University].

The preparation of teachers for regular schools has clearly needed to undergo quite significant change in recent years. One major adjustment has been the necessity to prepare teachers for progressively more diverse student populations as they will increasingly be required to teach in inclusive classrooms. Many teacher education institutions are, therefore, offering units of work that aim to tackle this. Utilizing an international data set of 603 pre-service teachers, consideration is given to the effect of a range of demographic differences on changing pre-service teacher attitudes toward inclusion; sentiments towards people with a disability and in reducing their concerns about inclusion when involved in a focused unit of work. Pre- and post-training comparisons are made which identify a range of variables that impact on changing pre-service teacher perceptions about inclusion. The discussion focuses on the importance of differentiating teacher preparation courses to address these different needs of pre-service teachers.
[Copyright of International Journal of Inclusive Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603110701365356]

This paper describes the development of an improved scale for measuring sentiments, attitudes and concerns about inclusive education in pre-service teachers based on an examination of data gathered from 996 pre-service teachers from five tertiary institutions using a modified version of the Interactions with People with Disabilities scale (Forlin, Jobling & Carroll, 2001; Gething, 1991, 1994), the Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale (Sharma & Desai, 2002), and the Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education Scale (Wilczenski, 1992, 1995). Based on the results of principal component analyses, conceptual judgments made by the research team, and a critique of content and format from an "expert group", a new scale, the Sentiments, Attitudes and Concerns about Inclusive Education scale (SACIE), is developed. The rationale behind the development of the scale is discussed.
[Copyright of International Journal of Special Education is the property of Hindawi Publishing Corporation.
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