Effects of teaching students with mental retardation to recruit feedback and/or reinforcement from their teachers in special classes

uı DOCTORAL DISSERTATION ABSTRACT EFFECTS OF TEACHING STUDENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION TO RECRUIT FEEDBACK AND/OR REINFORCEMENT FROM THEIR TEACHERS IN SPECIAL CLASSES Ayten UYSAL Special Education Major Graduate School of Educational Sciences, Anadolu University, August 2001 Advisor: Prof. Gönül KIRCAALİ-İFTAR Recruiting attention (feedback and/or reinforcement) from their teachers was taught to six students with mental retardation in two different special classes. Multiple baseline design across students was utilized in order to examine the effectiveness of this intervention. Students were taught to recruit feedback and/or reinforcement from their teachers when they needed teachers' help and/or when they needed to show their classroom work. Instruction included explaining and requesting explanation, and modeling and role-playing in order to teach when and how to recruit teacher attention. Students were taught to recruit teacher attention three or four times during one lesson. Instruction was delivered to each student individually at resource room by the researcher. Data were collected in each student's classroom during Math lessons by observing student behaviors as well as teacher behaviors. The dependent variables of the study were students' recruiting behaviors, accuracy of students' academic work at Math, and feedback and/or reinforcement provided to the students by their teachers. Inter-observer agreement and procedural reliability data were also collected. All reliability data were acceptable. Results of the study regarding students were as follows: (a) All but one students gained appropriate recruiting behaviors while having decreases in inappropriate recruiting behaviors, (b) All but one students reached the criteria at academic work. However, the teachers did not demonstrate important progress in terms of providing feedback and/or reinforcement to their students. These findings revealed that, in order to achieve success at both student and teacher behaviors, teachers as well as students need to be intervened.