A Study of the Effects of the Professional Semester on Certain Aspects of Personality & Interests of Elementary Education Students Minoring in Special Education

• Main Author: Geeslin, Dorine
• Format: Others
• Published: TopSCHOLAR® 1976
• Subjects: Education; Industrial and Organizational Psychology; Psychology; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Special Education and Teaching; Teacher Education and Professional Development
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/2383; https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3394&context=theses

When 32 elementary education students, 16 of whom were enrolled in an off-campus block of laboratory experiences with handicapped, took the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study and the Kuder Occupational Interest Survey, Form DD, there was no evidence that the professional semester affected self-confidence or social adjustment as measured by the number of extrapunitive and need-persistence reactions, respectively, on the P-F Study. The t test was used to compare the mean number of those responses made by members of the two groups. There was considerable evidence, however, that the number of subjects who gave elementary education the same or an even higher rank following the professional semester was too great to be attributed to chance when compared by means of chi square to the number and direction of rank changes made by members of the control group on the same occupational survey. The support which this study has given to actual classroom experience as a cause of increased professional commitment is sufficiently great to imply that other students might profit if their programs contained periods of time spent in daily contact with learners before their student teaching experiences begin.