Instructional leadership activities of special education supervisors

Janice Willis Rees, Purdue University

Abstract

The purpose of this study determined if special education personnel, responsible for the supervision of special education programs and teachers in the public schools, are perceived to be instructional leaders. The Instructional Activity Questionnaire, Form 3, was administered to a random sample of special education supervisors and teachers in the state of Indiana during the school year 1987-1988. The research sample consisted of 133 special education teachers and 38 supervisors. Cronbach's Coefficient Alpha was used to determine reliability of the instrument. The reliability alpha for the six instructional leadership clusters ranged from.7729 to.9157. Seven hypotheses were developed and tested for homogeneity followed by a t-test to determine difference in mean implementation scores for individual instructional leadership behaviors and the cluster behaviors of Goal Setting, Coordination, Supervision and Evaluation, Staff Development, School Climate, and School/Community Relations. The variables of who, gender, years of experience, and handicap of major responsibility were tested with a one-way analysis of variance; the Scheffe post test was used to determine whether these variables affected perceived mean implementation of instructional leadership activities. Four major findings emerged from this study. First, the Instructional Activity Questionnaire, Form 3, was found to have acceptable reliability for the measurement of instructional leadership activities. Second, the majority of individual items describing instructional leadership behaviors were perceived to be implemented by special education supervisors by both the teachers they supervise, and by supervisor's self-perceptions. Third, there was a significant difference in the perceived mean implementation score between teachers and supervisors on all six instructional leadership clusters, with teachers perceiving less. Lastly, there was a significant main effect for who and handicap of major responsibility. While the Scheffe post test did not support the significance from the ANOVA, there appeared an interesting pattern of responses from teachers whose major teaching responsibility was different handicapping areas.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Kline, Purdue University.

Subject Area

School administration|Special education|Educational evaluation

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