practices they would prefer. Teachers responded on a five point rating scale to a series
of statements about ability grouping and mixed ability teaching. The statements were
devised based on the existing literature and were extensively piloted before use. The
statements were grouped into sections relating to able pupils, personal and social
educational outcomes, equal opportunities, behaviour, attendance and exclusion, and
beliefs about the effects of different grouping structures on teaching. The actual
statements used are reported in the sections referring to the findings of the study. For
reasons of space they are not repeated here. Open questions were also included which
enabled teachers to express their beliefs in their own words.
Cronbach Alpha statistics relating to the internal reliability of the questionnaire were
already established based on a sample of over 1500 teachers representing all subjects.
The Cronbach Alpha statistics for each section were: able pupils 0.74; personal and
social educational outcomes 0.74; equal opportunities 0.67; behaviour 0.68;
attendance at and exclusion from school 0.71; and beliefs about the effects of different
grouping structures on teaching 0.53. Reliability for the scale as a whole was 0.65.
This paper focuses on the responses of teachers of art, music, drama and PE. The
questionnaires were completed in after school meetings which the teachers attended
voluntarily. Data were collected from 72 art teachers, 43 music teachers, 33 drama
teachers and 97 PE teachers. There were 144 female teachers and 89 male teachers aged
from 20 to 65. 32% were aged from 20-29, 24% from 30 to 39, 29% from 40to 49 and
11% over 50.
Findings