The Special Education Teacher's Understanding of Statistics
sionals, they must be able to understand the literature in their field. And, in‘fact, the willingness and ability to keep abreast of new knowledge can perhaps serve to differentiate between teachers who are master craftsmen in their profession and those who are merely maintaining themselves at the journeyman level. A survey of the literature relevant to exceptional children provides evidence of an increasing volume of research articles and reports that include statistical concepts and symbols. Statistics courses, however, are not usually included in a teacher’s education, and teachers frequently have a limited college mathematics background. Thus, it might be expected that teachers’ familiarity with statistical concepts would be minimal, leading them to be, at best, readers of introductions, conclusions, and abstracts of journal articles. In some cases, such a piecemeal approach to the literature may be sufficient to review a research article, but it cannot substitute for a comprehensive grasp of the entire work. The present study was conducted (a) to determine whether there is in fact a trend in the special education literature toward an increasing number of articles that require knowledge of statistical techniques and symbols and (b) to ascertain the capability of special education teachers to understand the literature in light of such a trend. PROCEDURES Six professional journals were surveyed for the years 1945, 1955, and 1965. They were: Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, American Journal of Mental Deficiency, Training School Bulletin, Journal of Speech The Special Education Teacher’s Understanding of Statistics: A Study DONALD D. HAMMILL, Ed. D. and ARTHUR BLUMBERG, Ed. D. Temple University