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Teacher attributioning in decision making
Author(s) -
Boucher C. Robin
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
psychology in the schools
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1520-6807
pISSN - 0033-3085
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6807(198101)18:1<115::aid-pits2310180122>3.0.co;2-5
Subject(s) - attribution , psychology , recall , expectancy theory , valence (chemistry) , developmental psychology , learning disability , information processing , social psychology , cognition , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , physics , quantum mechanics
Attribution theory was investigated in relation to information processing appropriate for IEPs, specifically teacher attributioning of the nature of the child's problem by ED or LD handicap label and strength of expectancy as a function of amount and type of information. Bogus case reports about a handicapped ten‐year‐old boy were constructed to represent a 2×2×2 factorial arrangement of treatments involving severity of child characteristics, labeling, and label‐appropriate characteristics based on the preparatory consensus of 28 teachers who sorted 106 representative child descriptors. In the main investigation, 112 elementary special education and regular classroom teachers read three‐page reports, made decisions about the nature of the child's problem, and took a timed retention test of report information. Results showed that attribution to handicap category occurred with or without labeling information; attribution to corresponding label occurred more reliably when the information referred to emotional disturbance characteristics than to learning disability characteristics; and recall of the ED label was consistently greater than recall of the LD label. Type and valence, rather than just amount, of information appeared to be more influential of attributioning in this kind of educational decision making.