Date of Award:

5-1987

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling

Department name when degree awarded

Special Education

Committee Chair(s)

Alan M. Hofmeister

Committee

Alan M. Hofmeister

Committee

Daniel Morgan

Committee

Ron Thorkildsen

Committee

Julie Landeen

Abstract

Writing, a complex organizational process that makes excessive attentional demands, can be frustrating for handicapped students. These students seldom complete a finished written product because t he y are usually trying to master the mechanical aspects of writing . Teaching the secondary-aged student with learning problems to use and unify writing skills into a finished product may be an initial step in helping them acomplish more difficult writing tasks.

The purpose of this Research and Development (R & D) study was (a) to develop and validate an expert system which suggests teaching and management strategies for special education teachers and (b) to develop a curriculum which provides the special education teacher with an effective method for teaching students to produce a business letter.

The development of Written Language Consultant (WLC) followed an R & D model which included the following stages: (a) product definition and design, (b) product prototype and progressive revision, and (c) product validation.

The summative evaluation was conducted in six secondary special education classrooms. Thirty-two students participated in the study. A non-equivalent control group design with counterbalancing was used so that all teachers could use and evaluate WLC and all students could receive the treatment.

The teachers completed a series of Likert-type questionnaires. The teachers' responses indicated that they agreed the information in the expert system knowledge base was valid, accurate , and practical.

That WLC assisted teachers in successfully teaching these students to write a business letter was supported by the observed statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups on parts A and B of posttest 1 after the initial treatment (p < . 01), the difference favoring the experimental group. Further supporting evidence was provided by the gains made by the control group after they received the treatment (pretest mean= 111, posttest mean= 375).

An analysis of the students' performance by mastery level showed that once these students were taught the steps and procedures for writing a business letter they were able to produce a more acceptable product . When they were pretested, none of the students could write a business letter. After the students were taught to write a business letter by teachers using WLC, 21 of the 32 students (66%) could write a business letter at an 80% or better mastery level.

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