THE SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS CONCERNS REGARDING THE USE OF
THERAPEUTIC STAFF SUPPORT (TSS) IN THE SCHOOL SETTING
Mary C. Desmone, EdD
University of Pittsburgh [2005]
The purpose of this study was to give voice to the special education teachers concerns regarding the use of TSS in their programs. How would special education teachers respond if they were given the opportunity to describe their concerns? They responded eagerly and thoughtfully. The teachers in this study were providing services to students in Autism, Life Skills, and Emotional Support programs at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. The study employed a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology including the developmental, expansion, and triangulation of various data. The Stages of Concern questionnaire was utilized to form a developmental baseline of information about the responding teachers. Interviews were conducted and a rubric was developed which provided an expansion of the understanding from the questionnaire. Observations were completed and assessed against the rubrics components. A triangulation of these three data collection methods enabled the researcher to write stories depicting the teachers experiences.
Sixty-five teachers completed the demographics and Stages of Concern questionnaire. The most significant finding in the demographics was the lack of training prior to TSS being introduced into their classroom. Results from the questionnaire indicated that the highest level of concern for most of the responding teachers was Stage 5-Collaboration. Thirteen teachers were interviewed and asked to describe their most effective and least effect experiences and to imagine an ideal utilization of the service. From their input, a rubric was developed to depict the continuum of ineffective, effective, and ideal utilization in the components of Professionalism, Preparation, Technique, and Environment. Nine observations were conducted and assessed using the rubric. The ratings found three observations in the ineffective, four in the effective, and two in the ideal categories. Using the data from the interviews and observations, stories were written describing ineffective, effective, and ideal utilization of TSS in the school setting.
Implications were found for educational policy, teachers contracts, agency system changes, training, and planning and implementation of TSS in the school setting. The teachers identified training in the roles of TSS, utilization of TSS, and collaboration with TSS as their priorities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04262005-083449 |
| Date | 02 May 2005 |
| Creators | Desmone, Mary Catherine |
| Contributors | Dr. Gorman |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04262005-083449/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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