Strategies of coping with school failure in students with mild intellectual disability in the inclusive model of education

Abstract

Academic achievement refers to the student's degree of mastery of knowledge, intellectual and practical skills, and cognitive strategies and is a significant indicator of the degree of the student's adaptation to the school environment. Experiencing academic failure leads to a loss of confidence in one's own strengths, a weakening of self-confidence, and a decrease in motivation for active participation in teaching activities. The goal of the research is to determine the strategies of coping with school failure in students with mild intellectual disability in an inclusive model of education. Students with mild intellectual disability (51-70 IQ), of both genders, participated in the research (N=81). The students included in the research attend the upper grades (5-8) of a primary school in the Mačva district. The school failure coping strategies scale (Lončarić, 2014) was used for the self-assessment of students' coping with school failure. The obtained research results confirm the existence of statistically significant differences in the use of strategies for coping with school failure on two subscales: Daydreaming (F(3,77)=4.02, p<0.01, e2 =0.14) and Ignoring the problem (F(3, 77)=6.86, p<0.001, e2 =0.21). A more detailed analysis indicates the existence of a statistically significant difference in the use of some of the coping strategies in relation to the school success of pupils (F(16,142)=2.45, Wl=0.615, p<0.01, e2 =0.22). The paper presents recommendations for further research related to the possibilities of overcoming school failure in pupils with mild intellectual disability in the inclusive model of education.

Keywords

• inclusive education
• coping strategies
• mild intellectual disability
• school failure