Date of Award:

8-2011

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Department name when degree awarded

Curriculum and Instruction

Committee Chair(s)

James Barta (Committee Co-Chair), Nancy Glomb (Committee Co-Chair)

Committee

James Barta

Committee

Nancy Glomb

Committee

Todd Campbell

Committee

Susan Turner

Committee

J. Nicholls Eastmond

Abstract

The individualized education program (IEP) is a critical component of providing special education services to children with disabilities, outlining the services and modifications that will be provided to help them make progress towards the general curriculum. While simulations have been shown to be an effective means of teaching special education policies and procedures, this can be challenging when working with distance students. The purpose of this study was to identify and examine how virtual simulations function to train preservice teachers learning to conduct IEP team meetings.

Seven preservice special education teachers enrolled in a mild/moderate distance degree and licensure program participated in this research. Through multiple case study analysis, this study examined the specific behaviors emitted by each participant throughout these simulated meetings, as well as the antecedent stimuli and consequences controlling these behaviors. Additionally, participants were each asked to construct rules, based on their own simulated experiences, to govern their future behaviors for in vivo individualized education program team meetings. Results indicate that virtual simulations served a variety of functions for training teachers to work on a collaborative team, including increased practice opportunities and self-efficacy to collaborate with parents in the future. Although teacher trainees had difficulty generating complete verbal statements to govern future behaviors, each was able to identify discrete antecedents, behaviors, and consequences responsible for controlling their actions throughout the simulations.

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b1f83faee276146c38b2b748e182ebf0

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on September 2, 2011.

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