Effects of Entry Level Skill Assessment Training on the Placement Decisions for Handicapped Students Made by Vocational Educators

Abstract:
The purpose of this dissertation was to evaluate the effects of entry level skill assessment training on the value and level of placement decisions made by vocational educators about handicapped students. With the passage of federal legislation which encourages the placement of handicapped students in regular classrooms, the skills for assessing both student and training program by the vocational educator become increasingly important. The use of entry level skills criterion may present a viable alternative for making objective and functional decisions for handicapped students.
The training of entry level skill assessment utilized decision theory techniques for analyzing exit level competencies and rating the subjective expected utilities of the entry level skills developed by the experimental group. The control group was provided with decision theory techniques for evaluation of existing program materials. The evaluation procedure utilized components of decision theory techniques to rank and weight vocational education outcomes and rate the subjective expected utility of placement decisions. A pretest and posttest evaluation was utilized which consisted of the application of decision theory techniques to the placement decisions of a series of case studies of handicapped students.
The results of the study indicated that the training had no significant effect on the values of the subjective expected utilities of the placement choices or the number of choices for each placement option. The discussion focuses on the constraints involved in developing entry level skills training procedures and utilizing decision theory techniques for placement decisions.
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