Parental perceptions of inclusive teacher and school support – Establishment of a short-form

Parental Perceptions of Inclusive Teacher and School Support – Establishment of a Short-Form The concept of inclusive education has gained considerable attention recently, emphasizing the importance of creating supportive educational environments for all students. Parental perceptions play a crucial role in shaping these inclusive climates (De Boer et al., 2010; Stevens & Wurf, 2020). However, current measures are often neither concise nor practical for widespread application. This study addresses this gap by developing a valid and reliable short scale for assessing parental perceptions of inclusive education. Despite growing research on inclusive education, there remains a lack of concise instruments that effectively capture parental perceptions across diverse contexts. A recently developed instrument focusing on parents’ views is the ‘Parental Perception of Inclusion Climate Scale’ (PPICS; Sharma et al., 2022). The original scale comprises 28 items representing three factors (‘Teacher and School Support’, ‘Student Engagement’ and ‘Friendships’). Although the original version has its advantages (broad representation of the constructs, tested psychometric properties), a shorter version would make it even easier to use in research and practice. Therefore, our research aims to shorten this instrument and to demonstrate its psychometric integrity. We used a sample of N=4,338 parents from Germany who completed a German version of the ‘PPICS’ (Kullmann & Blankenstein, 2024; Sharma et al., 2022) online. The total sample was randomly divided into two similar subsamples for validation. In the first subsample, we examined factorial structure using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Our results confirmed the replication of the originally proposed three-factor structure; however, one factor (‘Student Engagement’) was represented by only two items with insufficient reliability, while a second factor (‘Friendships’) included items that were not fully congruent with its intended content and had high cross-loadings.  It was therefore decided to retain only one robust factor (‘Teacher and School Support’) for further analysis. Items were excluded based on item characteristics and content relevance. This resulted in an eight-item scale, which was subsequently validated in the second subsample. The final analyses confirmed measurement invariance across both subsamples and different federal states as well as across parents of children with and without disabilities. These findings suggest that the shortened scale is reliable and valid for assessing parental perceptions of inclusive teacher and school support in different contexts. Its application can contribute to incorporating parents' perspectives into discussions about inclusive education. As part of a study in Switzerland in March 2025, the short version will be tested. These results will be complemented and discussed in the presentation. References  De Boer, A., Pijl, S. P., & Minnaert, A. (2010). Attitudes of parents towards inclusive education: A review of the literature. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 25(2), 165–181. Kullmann, H., & Blankenstein, L. (2024). GAPS-G – Global Parent Study – Germany: (Globale) Wahrnehmung von Eltern und Erziehungsberechtigten in Bezug auf Förder- und Regelschulen – Deutschland. German Version of the English Questionnaire of Sharma, Umesh (2023): Parental/Carer Global Perception towards Special/Mainstream Education. Project ID: 29469. Melbourne: Monash University. Paderborn: Paderborn University. Sharma, U., Woodcock, S., May, F., & Subban, P. (2022). Examining parental perception of inclusive education climate. Frontiers in Education, 7, Article 907742. Stevens, L., & Wurf, G. (2020). Perceptions of inclusive education: A mixed methods investigation of parental attitudes in three Australian primary schools. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 24(4), 351-365.