Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Studies

Sub-Department

Special Education

First Advisor

Kathleen Marshall

Abstract

As the accountability movement emerged with the passage of No Child Left Behind and the amendments of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act, there was a growing concern regarding how to best provide transition services for youth with disabilities. As Cobb, Lehmann, Newman-Gonchar, and Alwell (2008) have stated, a research base has emerged concerning the role of self-determination and other moderators that impact postschool outcomes. The purpose of this study was to identify if Choicemaker: Take Action: Making Goals Happen curriculum is effective in increasing global self-determination among middle school students with disabilities. Multiple Regression analysis was used with a sample of 220 students with disabilities from two middle schools located in a suburban area of the southeastern part of the United States. One school served as the intervention group (N = 109) to pilot the implementation of the curriculum for 8 weeks while the other was selected as the control group (N = 111). Self-determination scores, as measured with the ARC Self- Determination Scale (SDS) and AIR Self-Determination Scale (AIR), were compared before and after the curriculum implementation. In addition, multiple regression procedures were used to examine how disability, gender, age, group assignment, least restrictive placement (LRE) and the interaction between disability and gender (disability x gender) and disability and LRE (disability x LRE) predict differences between pre and post SDS and AIR scores for the intervention group only.

Rights

© 2015, Kelly Wulf

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