Primary Teachers’Opinions about PeerTutoring for Children with Special Needs

The aim of the study was to reveal the teachers’opinions about peer tutoring for children with special needs. The sample of the study consisted of 97 (39 male, 58 female) primary school teachers from Istanbul. This study evaluated teachers’opinions about peer-tutoring on academic and social subjects and also approaches of the administration and the parents of children with normal development. The correlations among the teachers’opinions and their demographic features were also analyzed. The results of the study indicated that male teachers believed much more strongly to the contribution of peers on academic subjects to special needs children than female teachers where more female teachers believed that peers can contribute to special needs children on social subjects than male teachers. Also there was a significant correlation between teachers’ having a person with disability around and believing peer contribution on social subjects. The teachers not having a person with disability around believed much more strongly to peer contribution on social subjects than the teachers having a disabled person around. Also the teachers willing to have a special class in their schools believed peer contribution on academic subjects more strongly than the teachers who did not. Much morefemale teachers than male teachers believed that administration would not help to them regarding peer tutoring and also parents of children without disability would have negative approaches when peer tutoring is implemented.