An analysis of the effects of full-time inclusion on the academic achievement of elementary general education students

The purpose of this study was to present issues relating to the achievement of general education students in inclusion settings. Specifically, the study addressed the following question: Does the full-time inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms affect the achievement outcomes of non-disabled general education students in such settings?

The variable under investigation in this study was achievement of general education students in third, fourth, and fifth grade inclusion classes--heterogeneous groupings of students with disabilities and their non-disabled general education peers. The comparison classes were those with only non-disabled general education students--homogeneous groupings. The dependent variables were achievement measures obtained from the Vocabulary, Spelling, Reading Comprehension, Language, Social Studies, and Science subtests of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

The results of this study suggest that there are differences in achievement of non-disabled general education students from inclusion classrooms and those of similar non-disabled general education students on all six subtests. The most notable results were at the fifth grade level.