The purpose of this study was to investigate current status of participation of students with
disabilities in the free semester activity and special classroom teachers’ perceptions on supports
for the students’ participation in order to identify ways to provide appropriate supports for
implementing free semester activity linked to inclusive education. For this purpose, survey was
conducted for a total of 112 special classroom teachers in all 117 middle schools’ special
classroom in incheon.
The results of this study are summarized as follows. In terms of the current status of
participation of students with disabilities in the free semester activity, more than half of
students who participated in the free semester activity were in the full inclusion settings and
the contents of participation were reported by all research participants for career search
activity. When it comes to special classroom teachers’ perceptions and needs on participation for
students with disabilities in the free semester activity, first, special classroom teachers
perceived that they were responsible for providing support to students with disabilities to
participate in the free semester activity. They also reported that the average of total importance
of support contents that special classroom teachers can provide to the teachers in charge of
each program was above the normal level On the other hand, the performance was below the
normal level. In addition, as a result of paired sample t-test, there was a statistically significant
difference between the importance of support content and the performance for it. Second, in
terms of outcome of participation, it was evaluated that the free semester activity was above
the normal level for students with disabilities. Third, in the section on needs for promoting
participation of students with disabilities and appropriate supports for their active participation,
the level of total needs was above the normal level, confirming the needs of the special
classroom teachers for improving the free semester activity. Finally, there are significant
difference among the participants' needs according to the background variables such as
teaching career experience and special class career experience. Based on the results of this
study, implications for the meaningful participation of students with disabilities placed in the
general school with their peers in the free semester activity were provided.