Beyond Task Completion: Multidimensional Scaffolding and Developmental Tensions in Inclusive Classrooms

Abstract

This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study examines how teachers scaffold learners with diverse learning needs in inclusive classrooms, focusing not only on the forms of support used but also on their developmental functions. A 24-item questionnaire completed by 186 teachers was followed by interviews with 12 teachers. The four scaffolding dimensions differed significantly, F(3, 555) = 120.48, p < .001, ηp² = .394: affective scaffolding was highest (M = 4.13), followed by cognitive (M = 3.94), social (M = 3.59), and metacognitive scaffolding (M = 3.34). Interviews showed that affective support often reopened participation before cognitive support could become effective, whereas metacognitive scaffolding and fading were more difficult to sustain under time and class-size pressures. Peer support likewise did not automatically produce inclusion; teachers had to scaffold the helping process itself to prevent doing-for and exclusion. Three contributions emerged from integration: (1) the affective access gateway, through which affect regulation enables cognitive access; (2) completion-development asymmetry, distinguishing support that enables task completion from support that transfers strategy; and (3) contingency compression, describing how structural constraints shorten the diagnosis-adjustment-fading cycle and pull practice toward direct assistance. The findings extend scaffolding research by locating contingency, affect, self-regulation, and classroom conditions within a single micro-level account of inclusive practice.