Patricia M. Noonan’s research while affiliated with University of Kansas and other places

High-quality, evidence-based professional development is essential to ensure that teachers obtain the knowledge, strategies and skills necessary to positively impact student learning. While the primary form of professional development, training has rarely been evaluated for quality beyond the satisfaction of those being trained. The Observation Checklist for High-Quality Professional Development Training (HQPD Checklist) was designed to measure observable indicators of effective professional development consistently. The HQPD Checklist is a valuable tool for professional development providers when designing and reflecting on training content, and for evaluators when monitoring the quality of professional development.

While there has been considerable research on team effectiveness in business, military and healthcare environments, there is a relative scarcity of research that examines characteristics of effective teams within a school. This study focuses on facilitating improvement of school teams with the Team Functioning Scale (TFS), a 17-item scale designed to capture and evaluate overall functioning of a team implementing a school improvement process. The TFS is a reliable and valid scale that measures how individual team members observe team functioning and supports continual improvement in team structure, focus, meaningful communication and shared decision-making, ideally resulting in higher-functioning teams with increased potential for effectiveness. The TFS is sensitive and responsive to change over time, indicating potential as a mechanism for improving teaming practices.

Previous research has demonstrated that for students with intellectual disabilities, improved self-determination skills are positively correlated with productivity and organization during school and quality of life outcomes in adulthood. Despite extensive investigation in these areas, the predictive relationship between self-determination and academic achievement for students with intellectual disabilities has not been fully established. This study utilized the sample from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 of 480 adolescents with intellectual disabilities in the United States in an attempt to provide a possible empirical explanation of the relationship between academic achievement and self-determination, taking into account the covariates of gender, family income and urbanicity. The structural equation model was found to closely fit the data: all path coefficients were statistically significant. The results of this study identify a strong correlation between self-determination and academic achievement for adolescents with intellectual disabilities, indicating a linear relationship of these skills and supporting an increased focus on the teaching of self-determination skills.

Since the revision of Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, experts and service providers have been operating on the untested assumption that State Performance Plan Indicator 13 (transition Individualized Education Program [IEP] compliance) is a precursor to Indicator 14 (student outcomes of engagement in postsecondary education, training, and employment). This study analyzed the relationship between Indicator 13 and Indicator 14 through bivariate linear regression. The sample included student-level secondary transition data from 352 local education agencies (LEAs) in Missouri. A total of 2,123 IEP files were reviewed using a validated checklist for compliance to the IDEA transition requirements, known as Indicator 13. Indicator 14 was measured via survey responses from 4,994 high school graduates with IEPs. Results revealed statistically significant linear relationships between LEAs’ Indicator 13 compliance data and the percentage of graduates with IEPs who completed a semester of college or a career training program. Findings suggest that alternate approaches and indicators may be needed to improve postsecondary outcomes for students with and without IEPs.

Improving collaboration among organizations is a goal of interagency educational teams, but collaboration is typically thought of as an ambiguous concept that cannot be quantified. To assess the collaborative strength of a state-level interagency team in a Midwestern state, team members completed the Levels of Collaboration Scale (Frey et al., American Journal of Evaluation 27(3):383, 2006) for three consecutive years. The team members then utilized the results of the social network analysis to support and sustain collaborative efforts. Findings revealed that the number of partnerships increased and the depth of collaboration expanded across the 3 years. Social network analysis results were utilized to develop collaboration strategies, thus influencing the expansion of the network across the 3-year period.

Research suggests that self-determination skills are positively correlated with factors that have been shown to improve academic achievement, but the direct relationship among self-determination, self-concept, and academic achievement is not fully understood. This study offers an empirical explanation of how self-determination and self-concept affect academic achievement for adolescents with learning disabilities after taking into consideration the covariates of gender, income, and urbanicity. In a nationally representative sample (N = 560), the proposed model closely fit the data, with all proposed path coefficients being statistically significant. The results indicated that there were significant correlations among the three latent variables (i.e., self-determination, self-concept, and academic achievement), with self-determination being a potential predictor of academic achievement for students with learning disabilities.

Interagency collaboration facilitates strong linkages to adult agencies, which improves adult outcomes among youth with disabilities (Kohler & Field, 2003; Repetto, Webb, Garvan & Washington, 2002). State-level transition teams increase collaboration, reduce duplication of resources, improve professional development, and heighten the cross-flow of information (Blalock, 1996; Wehman, 1998). Using social network (Daly, 2010) and focus group analysis (Krueger & Casey, 2000), this mixed methods study examined changes in collaboration, as well as collaborative characteristics and activities, among members of one state-level transition team. Analysis of the social network indicated a significant increase in the network density. Furthermore, focus group results indicated a range of collaborative strategies that built group cohesion and facilitated movement toward improving transition and student outcomes.

This study examined change in indicators of high-quality interagency collaboration after 1 year of establishing a community transition team and compared school and adult agency staff participants. The Transition Collaboration Survey was developed based on research-based indicators of collaboration, piloted, administered to school and agency participants from 16 midwestern community transition teams, and then analyzed through nonparametric statistics. Results indicated a significant increase in indicators of high-quality collaboration in domain areas of shared vision, variety of partnerships, time together, joint planning, shared leadership, structure, training together, minimizing duplication, and sustainability. School and adult agency staff increased collaboration in each domain area, with the exception of only school staff increasing administrative support.

Retaining teachers and accessing professional development have been long-standing struggles for rural school districts, particularly with respect to teachers with special education endorsements. This study examined the effect of asynchronous online professional development in secondary special education and transition for 86 rural special education teachers. In addition, the study compared results of teachers in rural and non-rural settings. Results indicated that rural special education teachers who participated in the online professional development gained knowledge, increased personal capacity to apply research-based practices, and implemented research-based transition practices within their classrooms. Furthermore, participants developed meaningful, collaborative relationships with rural colleagues across the country. While rural and non-rural educators both experienced gains as a result of the professional development, rural educators initially rated their competency in providing transition services much lower than their non-rural peers; however, both groups rated their competency at the same levels at the conclusion of the online professional development.