A STUDY OF THE CONNOTATIVE MEANINGS OF SPECIAL EDUCATION CENTERS AS MEASURED BY THE SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL

The purpose of this study was to compare the reactions of experienced teachers, beginning teachers and parents of preschool handicapped children towards special education concepts. Reactions towards neutral, positive and negative concepts were measured using the semantic differential. The study investigated if there were statistically significant differences in the ratings by the three groups of the different concepts. The semantic differential consisted of a total of twenty concepts defined as belonging to the positive, negative or neutral categories. The study contained four neutral concepts, ten negative concepts, and six positive concepts. The study first compared the mean rating values of the three groups of subjects in their evaluation of the meaning of the positive, negative and neutral concepts. An overall significance was found for the F value of the multivariate analysis. The data were then further analyzed at the univariate level. Significant differences among group means were found for the positive and negative concept categories. Finally, post-hoc, pair-wise comparisons were applied. These comparisons showed that the major differences were caused by significantly high ratings for the positive concept category by the beginning teachers, and by significantly low ratings for the negative concept category by the experienced teachers. The study then compared the mean rating values for six positive concepts and for ten negative concepts. Hypotheses were tested using a one-way univariate analysis of variance. These analyses showed significant differences for two positive concepts and seven negative concepts. Post-hoc, pair-wise comparisons were applied to these concepts. These comparisons showed the experienced teacher ratings were significantly lower for the seven negative concepts than those of the other two groups. The comparisons also showed that the beginning teacher ratings for the two positive concepts were significantly higher than those of the other two groups.