Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Dissertation

Keywords

Teaching teams--Iowa; Middle schools--Iowa; Interdisciplinary approach in education--Iowa;

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the concept of interdisciplinary teaming in Iowa middle level public schools grades 6-8. Of importance to the study was a comparison of desirability, implementation, teacher and administrator attitudes, level of use and student self-concept in middle level school using, and schools not using interdisciplinary teaming.

The study utilized five specific instruments for gathering data. The demographic survey and innovation configuration checklist ascertained the components of interdisciplinary teaming and determined whether a school was a user or nonuser of the concept. The Stages of Concern survey and Level of Use interview developed for Project CBAM by the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education at the University of Texas at Austin was used to analyze teacher and administrator attitudes, as well as, the level of implementation of the concept. The Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale analyzed the perceived self-esteem of students, grades 6-8, in user and nonuser Iowa middle level schools.

A sample of 116 middle level schools using middle level teaming and 116 nonuser schools was selected from the total 478 middle level public school population for analysis. From this sample, nine user schools and nine nonuser schools were selected for in-depth study using the Project CBAM instruments and the Piers-Harris Scale. A total of 157 teachers and 18 administrators responded to the Stages of Concern survey, and 149 teachers were interviewed using the Level of Use instrument. Over 1949 students in grades 6-8 in user and nonuser schools were given the Piers-Harris Scale.

SPSSx was used for the compilation of the data. A chi-square test of significance was used on the frequency distributions from all of the instruments except the Piers-Harris Scale for which a t-test was used. The 0.05 level of confidence was established for the study, however, in cases where the 0.01 level of confidence was exceeded, the significance was noted at that level.

From the data, the researcher concluded that although there is a high degree of desirability for the components of interdisciplinary teaming in schools using both and not using the innovation, there is little actual implementation of the innovation in Iowa middle level public schools. Of those schools implementing the concept, the level of use of interdisciplinary teaming is at the mid range level In comparing the students in user and nonuser schools, there is a higher level of student self-concept in schools using interdisciplinary teaming compared to students in schools not using interdisciplinary teaming.

Year of Submission

1988

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

First Advisor

Gregory P. Stefanich, Co-advisor

Second Advisor

Robert H. Decker, Co-advisor

Date Original

5-1988

Object Description

1 PDF file (x, 275 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Download

Comments?

Share

COinS