A Quantitative Study Exploring Special Educators' Perceptions of Their Roles as Leaders of Teacher Assistants

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Autor/in	Fecenko, Anne Deidre
Titel	A Quantitative Study Exploring Special Educators' Perceptions of Their Roles as Leaders of Teacher Assistants
Quelle	(2017), (175 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit Ph.D. Dissertation, Alvernia University
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
ISBN	978-1-3696-9868-8
Schlagwörter	Hochschulschrift; Dissertation; Special Education Teachers; Teacher Attitudes; Teacher Role; Supervision; Teaching Assistants; Educational Attainment; School Districts; School Location; Leadership Qualities; Questionnaires; Leadership Styles; Transformational Leadership; Females; Masters Degrees; Teaching Experience; Rural Schools; Leadership Training; Data Analysis; Psychometrics; Correlation; Accountability; Responsibility; Statistical Analysis; Pennsylvania; Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire; Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Thesis; Dissertations; Academic thesis; Special education; Teacher; Teachers; Sonderpädagoge; Sonderpädagogik; Sonderschulwesen; Lehrer; Lehrerin; Lehrende; Lehrerverhalten; Lehrerrolle; Bildungsabschluss; Bildungsgut; School district; Schulbezirk; Schulgelände; Führungseigenschaft; Fragebogen; Führungsstil; Weibliches Geschlecht; Rural area; Rural areas; School; Schools; Ländlicher Raum; Schule; Schulen; Führungslehre; Auswertung; Psychometry; Psychometrie; Korrelation; Verantwortung; Verantwortungsübernahme; Zuständigkeit; Statistische Analyse
Abstract	The role of teacher assistants has paralleled the changes in education over the years. The teacher assistants, who numbered 1.3 million in 2008 and are projected to increase by 10 percent by 2018 (Office of Labor Statistics, 2012) are valuable members of our educational communities providing support to students with special needs. These teacher assistants often enter the educational workforce with no formal training in how and what they should be doing to assist students. The question arises regarding the absence or presence of leadership abilities of special educators who have teacher assistants assigned to them. The purpose of this study was to explore special education teachers' perceptions of themselves as leaders of their teacher assistants. An additional outcome was to discover whether the participants' degree of education or their districts' locales within Pennsylvania affect their responses. Sixty-nine special education teachers from Pennsylvania participated in this study. The teachers completed both the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire-Self (LBDQ-Self) and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire Leader Form 5X-Short (MLQ Leader form). Teacher demographic information including degree of education, gender, or training in leading teacher assistant was also collected. The majority of the respondents were female. The majority also held master's degrees. The greatest amount of respondents had 0-7 years of experience. The rural area was most highly represented. The majority of the respondents indicated they had no training in leadership of their teacher assistants. Data analysis indicated that there is no relationship among or between the demographics based on respondents' answers. It was also determined that although similar ranges in responses to questions regarding psychometric attributes existed, no respondents' answers were the same for all questions. It was further determined that the results from the LBDQ-Self responses fell into three dimensions of leadership. The dimensions were developed by combining responses that were significantly correlated to each other. The Accountable Dimension represented attributes of a leader who has responsibility for defining the roles of the group members and responsibilities of the group overall. Approachable Dimension showed that the role of the leader was to address the well-being of the workers. Whereas the Authoritative Dimension was developed to reflect traits of a leader that include power and influence over the group. Based on the findings of this study, all of the participants were able to identify that they have some level of self-perception for the leadership of their teacher assistants. What this implies is that special educators lead their teacher assistants, but they are doing so, in the majority of cases based on this study's results, without formal training in this area. This implication lends itself to explore the impact of the special educators' intuitive leadership based on their real-life experiences and the development of leadership skills relative to their teacher assistants via informal methods such as collegiality, teacher leadership and mentoring. Further research into teacher candidate training programs at the university level and in-service programs at the workforce level; as well as leadership programs for educators should be explored and the results implemented. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.] (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01