Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PROCESS FOR SELECTING INSTRUCTIONAL AIDES
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a process to use in selecting instructional aides. Based on the findings from the review of literature and answers from teachers and aides in the Omaha Public Schools as to what constituted desirable qualities, an open-ended interview and a questionnaire were developed. Instructional aides in the Title I program in the Omaha Public Schools were randomly selected to participate in the study. The interview and questionnaire analyses were descriptive and correlational, and item-total coefficients were tested for statistical significance at the .05 level of probability. A factor analysis of both the questionnaire and the interview was a principle component analysis rotated to the verimax criterion. The correlation coefficients were tested at a .05 level of probability. The major conclusions of this study were: (1) Teachers in the Omaha Public Schools identified desirable characteristics of instructional aides more like the literature than did students in the Omaha Public Schools. (2) The most desirable characteristics of instructional aides based on all three sources were supervision tolerance, ethics, empathy and acceptance, patience, rapport, interest in students, helpfulness, intelligence and firm discipline. (3) A questionnaire and interview could be developed with items that focused on these desirable characteristics, and a number of these items would also meet the item difficulty and item discrimination criteria. (4) The revised form of the instructional aide interview should be used in place of the original interview because of its brevity and its high correlation (r = .942) with the original interview. (5) The revised form of the instructional aide questionnaire should be used in place of the original questionnaire because of its brevity and its high correlation (r = .813) with the original questionnaire. (6) In a selection process for instructional aides, the questionnaire might be used as a "screener" given to all applicants as part of the application. Only those applicants who scored the highest need then be interviewed in depth.
Subject Area
School administration
Recommended Citation
THAYER, VICKEY WYNN, "THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PROCESS FOR SELECTING INSTRUCTIONAL AIDES" (1981). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8208388.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8208388