Background: Evaluation of fund of knowledge about SLD among kindergarten and primary schoolteachers is essential to avoid misdiagnosis of SLD and to plan for specific teacher education ...
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Background: Evaluation of fund of knowledge about SLD among kindergarten and primary schoolteachers is essential to avoid misdiagnosis of SLD and to plan for specific teacher education toenable early identification of SLD among children. Aim: To assess the knowledge of learningdisability among primary school teachers in India and to investigate its psychometric properties.Materials and Methods: An observational study was carried out 34 primary school teachers from2 different schools in Puducherry town agreed to participate in this study with informed consent.We used a multiple choice questionnaire format with a total of 50 questions, 5 choices for eachquestion and a total score of 50. The study was held at the schools where these teachers wereemployed using pen and paper testing method and data were entered into the computer forstatistical analysis. Statistical Analysis: Total scores on the questionnaire of all teachers werecalculated. Content validity, reliability coefficient, discrimination factor, and facility factor wereanalyzed using SPSS software. Results: 29% of the questions were correctly answered by all34 teachers. The mean total score for this sample was 14.50 ± 9 and total item score for the 50items was 9.90 ± 4. Cronbach’s (α) reliability was 0.89. Overall discrimination index was + 0.2 andfacility factor analysis score was 0.26. Conclusions: Validation of this new screening questionnairewas successful in Indian setting. It has to be used in other settings to extrapolate our findings.
