The 1973 Rehabilitation Act called for expansion and redirection of public rehabilitation efforts to severely handicapped persons and, to achieve this goal, the increase, implementation, and evaluation of diversified manpower training and utilization practices. The Act encouraged employment of rehabilitation technicians to assume ancillary, subprofessional, technical tasks thereby freeing counselors to provide extensive and intensive counseling, planning, consulting, on-the-job training, and job placement services. The conceptual framework implied that technician utilization within a rehabilitation service team/unit context would enhance service delivery and that teams with technicians would perform differently from teams without technicians. / It was the purpose of this investigation to study comparatively technician utilization in two types of rehabilitation service delivery units in the State of Florida vocational rehabilitation program, and specifically, to examine its relationship to and differential effect upon team performance on selected rehabilitation process variables and outcome measures. / The sample included nine randomly selected experimental units to which rehabilitation technician positions were assigned in 1975 and 45 randomly selected control units. Rehabilitation counselors within these 54 units were asked to complete demographic and professional service delivery functions self-report questionnaires; 212 counselors (87 percent) responded. As no prior records pertaining to process variables had been maintained, responses to items reflecting them were accepted at face validity; responses reflecting outcome measures were validated against master lists (VR 100s) kept by the state agency. After cross-validation, 161 questionnaires (76 percent) were accepted as valid. / With alpha, beta, and effect size (.05, .60, and R('2) = .26, respectively) pre-established, multiple regression analyses were performed to test the statistical hypotheses. Results indicated technician utilization within units/teams influences their performance and productivity with regard to processes involving initial interviews and on-the-job training activities and outcomes measured by referrals. Also, results revealed that caseload type (general or special) and experience level of counselors are important contributors to these processes and to successful rehabilitations. / Findings suggest that utilization of rehabilitation technicians enhances present goals of service; however, further research is needed to describe both the configuration of workers' interpersonal relationships and the nature of tasks they perform to better assess achievements of diversified manpower deployment within the rehabilitation services system. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-01, Section: A, page: 0107. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74021 |
| Contributors | KELLEY, DOROTHEA MARIE., The Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 172 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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