Date of Award

Summer 1972

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Education (MSEd)

Program/Concentration

Special Education

Committee Director

Paul Renz

Committee Member

Ellen Latham

Committee Member

William Latham

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E32G83

Abstract

A systematic pilot investigation of connotative differences in the meaning of commonly used labels for "emotional disturbance" was undertaken with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, elementary-education teachers, special-education teachers, and counselors in the Tidewater area of Virginia. The Semantic Differential technique de eloped by Osgood (1952) was selected as the method of investigation, and an instrument was prepared from a sample of the professional and nonprofessional populations through the use of a modified paper-and-pencil free association. A 35-scale instrument was developed from this procedure and administered to a sample of 100 graduate and undergraduate students at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia.

A review of the literature related to professional attitudes toward the "emotionally disturbed" revealed little systematic investigation although studies of attitudes toward other exceptionalities were more extensive. Those studies relevant to the other exceptionalities reported findings of both positive and negative attitudes and findings of significant differences between groups.

A Varimax rotated factor analysis (Kaiser, 1958) of the data was used to define the semantic space. This analysis generated seven factors which accounted for 61% of the total variance. These seven factors included: Evaluative, Intellectual, Activity, Anxiety, Deviancy, Eccentricity, and Potency. In order to determine· if significant intergroup differences in the connotative aspects of meaning existed, the Kruskall-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was used. The results indicated that no significant (p = .OS) inter­ group differences existed; however, large intragroup differences were observed, but not tested.

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DOI

10.25777/4x1n-0423

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