ADHD-specific knowledge and attitudes of New South Wales Government school teachers

ADHD is one of the most common neurobiological disorders among school aged children and has significant implications for their educational outcomes (Barkley, 2015). It is widely known that attitudes have a direct relationship to teacher actions in the classroom (Avramidis & Norwich, 2002; Cronin-Jones, 1991; Kos, Richdale, & Hay, 2006; Leatherman & Niemeyer, 2005; Mulholland, 2016b); therefore, gaining an understanding of teacher knowledge and attitudes with regard to students who display ADHD-type behaviour is an essential step in improving their educational outcomes and school experiences. There are currently few valid and reliable research instruments that investigate the ADHD-specific knowledge and attitudes teachers hold, and of the studies that investigate attitudes, most do little more than examine false factual information that teachers believe to be true (Kos, Richdale, & Hay, 2006; Mulholland, Cumming, & Jung, 2015). The present study of NSW government school teachers aimed to ascertain the level of overall knowledge teachers possess regarding ADHD, and the attitudes teachers hold toward ADHD, the children who display ADHD-type behaviours, and the teaching thereof. The study developed and assessed an effective, reliable, useful research instrument, and also examined the impact of demographic characteristics on the level of knowledge and attitudes. Analysis showed that NSW government school teaches scored average 73.32% on Scale for ADHD-specific knowledge (SASK), but had a less sound knowledge in some areas than others, for example, management of ADHD. Analysis also demonstrated that there were some significant demographic predictors of teacher knowledge and attitudes; however, the models generated from this data set accounted for a small percentage of the variance of scores. Furthermore, analysis showed teachers desire more ADHD-specific professional learning, which has significant implications for government departments, universities, and private professional learning companies. Overall, this thesis has provided a necessary and more comprehensive investigation into the ADHD-specific knowledge and attitudes teachers of NSW government schools hold. While some of the findings from this study are analogous to those from previous research, both in Australia and around the globe, much of the reported results represent novel, more comprehensive findings.

Grantor dc:publisher

UNSW, Sydney

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Mulholland, Sarah

• Knowledge
• ADHD
• Teacher
• Attitudes

Statement dc:rights

• open access
• CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
• free_to_read

Licence

• https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/

Language dc:language

EN

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/3349

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/59514