Attitudes of superintendents, teachers, and parents toward program formats designed for gifted students /
| Main Author: | |
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| Other Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
1988.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | ProQuest, Abstract Link to OAKTrust copy |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this research was to assess attitudes of superintendents, regular classroom teachers, and parents of gifted children toward program formats used in the education of gifted students. A 32 item questionnaire was developed to encompass 32 possible formats distributed among three subscales, acceleration, enrichment, and grouping. The questionnaire, mailed to 56 superintendents, 150 teachers, and 150 parents, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, resulted in 241 responses, a response rate of 68%. Eight sets of null hypotheses were analyzed. Analysis of variance procedures indicated significant differences among the attitudes of superintendents, teachers, and parents toward the three subscales. Superintendents were more favorable than teachers and parents toward all three subscales. Teachers and parents differed only on the enrichment subscale where parents were more supportive than teachers. Secondary teachers were more favorable than elementary teachers on the acceleration subscale. Parent attitudes toward the three subscales were not found to be influenced by grade level or gender of their gifted child. Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficients between number of courses taken by superintendents and teachers on the education of the gifted and their attitudes on the acceleration subscale revealed moderately low inverse relationships for both respondent groups, indicating that as the number of courses taken increases, the score on this subscale decreases. For superintendents, a moderately low negative relationship was found between number of inservice programs attended on the gifted and the grouping subscale. However, no significant relationships were found between number of inservice programs attended by teachers and their attitudes toward the three subscales. Conclusions from the study showed that superintendents, teachers, and parents have different attitudes toward the various formats. These differences may be important to address when planning gifted programs. Respondent comments indicated that program options that remove gifted children from their agemates or totally segregate them from their average ability peers will be less accepted than other options. |
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| Item Description: | Typescript (photocopy). Vita. "Major subject: Educational Psychology." |
| Physical Description: | x, 124 leaves ; 29 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-103). |