This study was designed to determine the qualifications and role status of English department chairpersons in the secondary schools of the state of Florida; it was further designed to distinguish between the role status as it actually exists and an ideal role that the three reference groups deemed desirable for the most efficient department. The investigation involved English teachers, English department chairpersons, and principals randomly selected from school districts in the state of Florida. The Florida Education Directory, 1978-79 was used to obtain a stratified random sample of "clusters" or districts in order to assure representation of large, medium and small schools. A table of random numbers was used to select the sampling unit in schools from which the three reference groups were drawn. Respondents from the three groups returned 280 usable questionnaires which had been designed by this researcher. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, the questionnaire consisted of four parts: a cover sheet asking for demographic, qualifications, and role status information; a "REAL" component asking for responses which indicated duties presently being performed by English chairpersons; an "IDEAL" component asking reference groups to respond to the same questions but in a manner they deemed most desirable for their school; and a fourth component which solicited information about the English chairperson's roles as affected by contemporary issues in education. The results of the study presented the present role status of English chairpersons and their functions in the areas of qualifications, staffing, curriculum, evaluation and materials. The study showed that the present role status or functions in any of these areas are not the same in actual practice as respondents feel they should be to best serve the school. The study indicated two major reasons for / the difference: lack of release time to perform the functions and lack of power or authority to carry out the functions. Respondents indicated that appointment is generally the method used to select the chairperson and that a well-qualified person is usually selected. The reference groups also indicated that contemporary issues will and should affect the role of the chairperson. Through the use of percentages and frequencies, histograms, means and standard deviations, medians, Pearson correlation coefficients, and an analysis of variance the investigator obtained the above results to achieve the purpose of this investigation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-07, Section: A, page: 2861. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74231 |
| Contributors | LUMPKIN, BETTIE JANE HATCHER., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 130 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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