Date of Award

1993

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership, Research and Counseling

First Advisor

Charles Teddlie

Abstract

This study examined the attitudes and perceptions of general and special educators engaged in collaborative consultation and those utilizing traditional self-contained or resource methods of special education service delivery. A difference in collaborative consultation and traditional educators was predicted on autonomy, as measured by Charters' (1974) Sense of Autonomy Scale (SAS), zone of acceptance, as measured by the Professional Zone of Acceptance Inventory (PZAI) (Kunz and Hoy, 1974), and pluralistic ignorance, as measured by the Pupil Control Ideology (PCI) form developed by Willower, Eidell, and Hoy (1967). School climate was measured using the Organizational Climate Description Question-Revised Elementary (OCDQ-RE) (Hoy and Clover, 1986) and predicted to differ based upon the type of special education service delivery model used in the school. Advocates of collaborative consultation have primarily focused attention on describing the model or training programs. Benefits to general educators and students have been cited. Yet the few empirical studies which have been conducted have yielded uncertain and mixed results. Furthermore, studies which include general educators have been rare. In this study it was predicted that teachers engaged in collaborative consultation would have a lower sense of autonomy, higher zone of acceptance for advice from other educators, and lower pluralistic ignorance. Statistical analyses supported the hypotheses in the directions predicted in all but one instance; however, significance was only reached for the hypothesis that predicted pluralistic ignorance exists between general and special educators. In schools in which teachers are engaged in collaborative consultation the climate was expected to be more open. Again the results were in the predicted direction although not significant; however, a significant difference between the schools was found on the teacher disengaged behavior subscale. Four case studies were conducted to further investigate the attitudes and perceptions of general and special educators. The case studies also supported the hypotheses in the predicted direction as well as raising issues about the roles of general and special educators and the school structure. Teachers' responses to interview questions lead to implications for preservice and/or inservice training of teachers who will be engaging in collaborative consultation.

Pages

214

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.5581

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