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Incidences of collective bargaining, strikes, and other union activities by public school teachers have multiplied rapidly across this country. By the 1979-1980 school year teacher strikes in this country reached a record high of 242. In addition, teachers had won the right to organize and to bargain collectively by statute in three-fifths of the nation's states by the end of the 1970s. However, in 1977 the Virginia State Supreme Court declared that the state could not delegate to local governing bodies or boards the right to bargain collectively with public employees. The purpose of this study was to investigate the specific attitudes held by public school teachers in Prince William County, Virginia to various forms of collective action. The secondary purpose of this descriptive research was to analyze the relationship between these teachers' attitudes toward collective action and selected demographic variables. A random sample of 322 teachers received the Demographic Questionnaire and Collective Action Survey. Responses were analyzed according to frequency distribution and stepwise multiple regression to determine significance between respondents' attitudes and demographic characteristics. The results of the multiple regression analysis determined that four demographic variables had a statistically significant relationship with scale score or total attitude toward collective action. These variables were political affiliation, social class, degree status, and place of birth. Overall, respondents held attitudes favorably disposed to collective action. / Ed. D. / incomplete_metadata

Many driving forces, among which are customs, traditions, habits, confusion and bigotry, have loomed as obstacles to integration in the United States since the Supreme Court decision of 1954. Those in the schools affected by these forces include administrators, teachers, counselors, students and parents. Each administrator, teacher and counselor is a unique person. Each relates to colleagues and students in a different way. These differences in perception are significant and have made it more difficult to achieve successful desegregation in Dallas. The problem addressed by this study was that of determining whether differences existed in the responses of a selected group of Black teachers and White teachers to three apprehension scales. The apprehension scales are related to (a) different role behaviors, (b) different kinds of interpersonal interactions, and (c) campus-related situations. The scales are assessed within a categorical socio-cultural context, i.e., work, church, social and family life. Seventy-five Black teachers and seventy-five White teachers participated in the study. From analysis of the data one can say that there was a significant difference in the responses of teachers to the i terns on the questionnaire. When responses of teachers across groups were ranked and analyzed using ranks, percentages Kruskal-Wallis and Chi-Square techniques, race, sex and experience did influence teacher responses. Respondents repeatedly assigned those items closest to them (the greatest threat) first priority and those items furthest from them (the least threatening) the last priority. / Ed. D.

In recent years, naturalistic studies of planning have shown the "hidden side of teaching," pictures of the ways teachers think before and after they enter the classroom. Few, however, have shown how prescriptive planning models impact on teacher thought and the classroom environments the they create; and none has looked at the impact of prescriptive planning models on preservice teacher thought. The purpose of my study was to create ethnographic descriptions of two preservice teachers’ thoughts and of the classroom environments they created. The major difference between the two participants was the prescriptive planning model used. One used a rational means-end planning model -- the model most commonly taught to prospective teachers when they are first introduced to unit planning. This model encourages the teacher to develop a written unit plan with a rationale, objectives, activities, and evaluation standards prior to the teaching of a lesson or set of lessons. The other preservice teacher used a recently developed recursive planning model that encourages brainstorming, design, and reflection based on a list of educational design variables that research has indicated have an impact on educational environments. My ethnographic findings reveal that the use of both planning models impacted on preservice teacher thought and on the classroom environments they created in terms of: 1. The quantity, quality, and content of the planners’ preactive and postactive thought, 2. the quantity of unplanned decisions that the planners made while teaching, 3. the overall organizing principle of their classroom environments, and 4. the way preservice teachers defined and practiced planning. / Ed. D. / incomplete_metadata

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The first purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Inventory of Opinions About Persons with Disabilities (IOPD). The IOPD was developed to collect preservice early childhood educators’self-report data related to inclusion. A total of 332 participants enrolled in graduate programs in a college of education served as the validation sample. After validation and revision of the IOPD, the researcher used the instrument to investigate preservice early childhood educators’ beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge about students with disabilities and their inclusion in general education classrooms. Data were collected from 172 participants from 10 universities in Texas during their student teaching/final intern semesters. This research demonstrated that an instrument, the IOPD, could be developed to effectively measure preservice early childhood educators’ beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge about the inclusion of children with disabilities in their classrooms. The participants reported positive self-perceptions (mean = 2.0388) about their beliefs and attitudes toward inclusion. However, the participants reported less positive attitudes about training (mean = -.09884). Discriminant function analyses indicated a negligible statistical effect for type of program (professional development school or traditional) and a statistically significant effect for preferred classroom setting (non-inclusive, special education, inclusive). Further research with the same participants or similar cohorts at one and three years of inservice teaching could broaden the scope of knowledge regarding early childhood teachers’ opinions about inclusion and students with disabilities. In addition, including procedures for gathering qualitative data with the Inventory of Opinions About Persons With Disabilities might provide more specific information about individual beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge about inclusion.

Quality physical education is important to adolescent health and physical well-being. For urban schools, contextual and environmental constraints often make school-based physical education challenging. A good fitness testing program has the potential to promote physical activity and fitness. Attitude theory posits that attitude influences how teachers do their work. The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of urban middle school physical education teachers toward physical fitness tests and their relationship with student performance on fitness tests. Middle school teachers (N = 124) were recruited from urban school districts on the east and west coasts of the United States. They completed the Physical Education Teacher Attitudes toward Fitness Tests instrument (Keating & Silverman, 2004) whose scores have been validated and also provided demographic information. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics for overall teacher attitude and teacher attitude subdomains and correlational statistics to examine the relationship between each component of teacher attitude (overall, affective, and cognitive) and the percentage of students in the Healthy Fitness Zone (HFZ) on various components of the FITNESSGRAM. Correlations also were examined by various teacher demographic variables and for boys and girls. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to examine the differences in fitness tests performance variables by demographic and profession-related variables. Teachers’ overall attitudes toward fitness testing were just higher than neutral, signaling positive attitudes. Among the findings, the affective subdomain of teachers’ attitude on the enjoyment of using fitness tests results was found to have a significant positive relationship with the percentage of students in the HFZ for the push-up test. Additional significant positive relationships between the percentage of students in the HFZ on the tests and various components of attitude were also found for girls. The findings suggest that teachers’ affective attitude may have a relationship with students’ performance on fitness tests and that relationships may be different for boys and girls. The relationships for teachers’ attitude toward enjoyment of using fitness tests results suggests teachers may use them to design activities and lessons that lead students to engage in more physical activity and thus improve their levels of fitness.