THE EFFECTS OF ELEARNING INSTRUCTION ON THE QUALITY OF WRITTEN IEP GOALS & OBJECTIVES

Abstract

The Individualized Education Program (IEP) is intended to serve as a planning tool to ensure that school teams provide students with disabilities a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) (Blackwell & Rosetti, 2014). An essential step in the IEP process includes the development of meaningful and measurable IEP goals based on students’ present levels of performance and specific areas of need (Christle & Yell, 2010). Despite the significant role that the IEP plays in meeting legal requirements of the IDEA, research has shown that the quality of IEPs for students with disabilities is generally low (Blackwell & Rosetti, 2014; Rakap, 2015), especially for students with autism (Etscheid, 2003). Research evaluating IEP quality for students with autism revealed that many IEPs failed to include goals and objectives that addressed students’ deficits in social communication or social interactions (Ruble, McGrew, Dalrymple, & Jung, 2010) despite explicit recommendations for best practices (NRC, 2001). The purpose of this study was to train pre-service teachers to use results from a curriculum-based assessment to write quality IEP goals and objectives for students with autism. The study used a randomized group design in which undergraduate students (N = 32) enrolled in an introductory special education course were randomly assigned to a training group. Participants assigned to the Captivate Group (n = 16) participated in a series of interactive eLearning modules in which there were opportunities for the learners to respond to questions and engage in various learning interactions. The training provided to participants in the Video Group (n = 16) served as a treatment-as-usual condition in which participants viewed video recordings of the eLearning modules, but did not have opportunities to engage in any learning interactions. A two-way mixed analysis of variance was conducted to examine within group differences from pre- to post- test and between group differences based on the method of eLearning training received. Additional analyses were conducted in order to compare the quality of goals and objectives written for academic skills and goals targeting communication skills. Results indicated significant improvement for both groups on the quality of written goal and objectives from pre- to post-test . Although the Captivate Group performed slightly better on the post-test, there was no significant effect for training received. Additional analyses examining group outcomes on specific quality indicators revealed some noteworthy differences between groups. The data also confirmed statistically significant differences between participants’ total academic scores and total communication scores at pre-test, meaning that goals and objectives written for academic skills met more quality indicators compared to goals and objectives written for communication skills. A second paired samples t-test on participants’ post-test totals showed significant differences in quality for the Video Group, but not the Captivate Group.