Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Teachers of children with disabilities--Training of--Iowa--Cedar Falls; Teachers of children with disabilities; Teachers of children with disabilities--Training of; Iowa--Cedar Falls;

Abstract

A major purpose of this study was to subject the University of Northern Iowa's special education competencies to a consortium rating for determination of the relative importance of each competency for teachers of the mildly handicapped. A secondary purpose of this study was to determine the generic nature of these competencies.

The subjects involved in the study included Iowa special education teacher trainers; Area Education Agency directors and consultants for multi-disability programs; and special education teachers in multi-disability settings.

A questionnaire employing a forced ranking procedure was mailed to each subject. The results of the ranking were used to determine the mean of each competency and to identify the top one-third in the ranking. A Chi-square goodness of fit test was used to determine the agreement, across the consortium, on the relative importance of the competencies. The generic applicability of the competencies was determined by Chi-square goodness of fit tests applied to teacher raters across instructional settings and functional levels of children taught.

The top one-third (11) of the competencies from the mean ranking (highest mean first) were: (1) individualize materials, (b) match materials and equipment to short term goals, (c) employ a variety of remedial techniques, (d) sequence tasks, (e) administer standardized and teacher made tests, (f) communicate with parents regarding pupil needs, (g) identify strong and weak learning modes, (h) provide success experiences for pupils, (i) select and design evaluation systems, (j) communicate pupil needs to other professionals, and (k) implement an instructional management system to coordinate curricular, motivational and evaluation systems.

There was agreement across the consortium on seven of the competencies in the top one-third. After analysis by Chi-square, the four competencies rejected at the .05 level of significance were: (a) provide objectives to meet short terms goals, (b) identify strong and weak learning modes, (c) provide success experiences for pupils, and (d) communicate pupil needs to other professionals. Teachers appeared to perceive these competencies more important than did teacher trainers. There also appeared to be more agreement between teachers and AEA personnel than between these various public school personnel and teacher trainers.

A Chi-square goodness of fit test across instructional settings of teacher raters revealed agreement on 30 of the 33 competencies (rejection level .05). A Chi-square goodness of fit test across functioning level of children taught indicated agreement on 29 of the 33 competencies (rejection level .05).

In conclusion, the respondents ranked a variety of teacher skills as important yet showed a tendency to consider instruction (curricular) skills as most important. The disagreement, across the consortium, on the relative importance of competencies appeared to be largely between teachers and teacher trainers. The majority of the competencies appear to be generic across instructional settings and functioning level of children taught.

Year of Submission

1976

Degree Name

Specialist in Education

Department

Department of Special Education

First Advisor

Lee Courtnage

Comments

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Date Original

1976

Object Description

1 PDF file (141 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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