The Effectiveness of SERASI Intervention Program For Improving Parents Attitudes Toward Students With Disabilities

Farida Aini^a* and Farida Kurniawati^b

^aFaculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia; ^bDepartment of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia

*corresponding author email: faridaaini16@gmail.com

The effectiveness of SERASI intervention program for improving parents attitudes toward students with disabilities

ABSTRACT

Background. Permendiknas (Ministry of Education role) No. 70/2009 affirms that students with disabilities have the opportunity to attend school in regular school. The program is known as 'inclusive education' and it proves as the most effective way of reducing discrimination, creating openness, building inclusion and creating education for all children. The successfulness of inclusive education need involvement parents as one of school community. Improving parents positive attitude toward students with disabilities is the first step in increasing role of parents in inclusive education. The SERASI (Sekolah Ramah Inklusi) intervention program was designed to enhance positive attitudes of peers, teachers, and parents of regular students towards students with disabilities in inclusive primary schools. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of SERASI intervention program in improving parents positive attitude toward students with disabilities in such a way that it will improve their children (regular students) attitude toward students with disabilities.

Methods. The SERASI intervention program is two days training program involving 23 parents (mothers) in an inclusive primary school. It held five hours for each day. Participants are parents of regular students. It has seven sessions namely one pre-intervention session, five intervention sessions (materials about inclusive education, disabilities, strategies to communicate with special need students, empathy towards students with disabilities and self-efficacy to help students with disabilities), and one evaluation session. These sessions involved a variety of methods such as discussions, lectures, case studies, and games. A parent of the student with disabilities invited and presented her experience. In addition, participants created an action plan to help students with disabilities. These activities increase participant knowledge and empathy for parents who have children with disabilities. Moreover, participants encouraged to do something to help students with disabilities. Participants' attitudes were measured using a Parental Attitudes Toward Children with Handicapped (PATCH) questionnaire in Bahasa version. It consists of three dimensions (attitude; cognitive, affective and psychomotor). Firstly, researcher adapted PATCH questionnaire into Bahasa using a scale with four choices (very agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree). PATCH-Bahasa version was tested on 310 parents of regular students in inclusive schools. There are 26 significant items based on confirmatory factor analysis with reliability 0.917. Secondly, participants fill in the same questionnaire at pre-test and post-test stage. Lastly, comparing scores to evaluate the changes in the participant’s attitudes changes. Data were analyzed using paired sample t-test.

Results. The results show some improvement in participants’ attitude toward students with disabilities with total scores increased significantly between pre-test (M=77.35, SD=6.766) and post-test (M=83.65, SD=9.393), t(22)= -5.182, p = 0.000. For each aspect increased significantly as well; cognitive pre-test (M=21.00, SD=2.780) and post-test (M=22.61, SD=3.144), affective pre-test (M=26.48, SD=2.644) and post-test (M=28.83, SD=3.353) and psychomotor pre-test (M=29.87, SD=2.564) and post-test (M=32.22, SD=3.861). It means that SERASI Intervention Program for parents might improve parents attitudes toward students with disabilities. According to the participants' comprehension scores on the training materials, the average score gained after training has risen by 2.8 points compared to the comprehension score before training.

Conclusion. SERASI intervention program for parents appear in general to be effective, associated with an increasing score in post-test stage. The result yields an increasing score of parents’ attitude significantly after receiving intervention program.

Added-Values. Participants generally found that training is useful. However the study is very limited, especially in Indonesia. It could be a model of intervention program for parents to enhance their positive attitude towards students with disabilities. Moreover, inclusive education program in Indonesia will more successful by involving parents. Further study should conduct follow up measurement and get more participants from a different background as part of strengthening positive attitudes formation and for generalization purposes.

Keyword: Inclusive education, regular students, attitudes, parents, SERASI Intervention Program

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