PERCEPTIONS OF ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY ELEMENTARY EDUCATION CORE GRADUATES OF SPECIFIED PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the investigation was to examine the efficacy of specified instructional objectives for each CORE component in terms of their classroom utility and perceived value by Illinois State University Elementary Education CORE graduates. Selected graduates were requested to assess the extent to which they had an opportunity to apply the objectives in their classroom teaching and to the extent they perceived the objectives as being beneficial to them as classroom teachers. A questionnaire was designed to gather data with which to assess ten research questions and test eighteen hypotheses.;Based upon an analysis of the study, the following conclusions were drawn. (1) The year of graduation, the amount of education attained beyond undergraduate graduation, the student teaching clinical center attended, and the teaching location of inservice teachers had no significant relationship to graduates' perception of "opportunity to apply" and "perceived value" of specified CORE instructional objectives. (2) Inservice teachers with higher overall grade-point averages viewed the "opportunity to apply" and "perceived value" of CORE instructional objectives more favorably than their counterparts with lower overall grade-point averages. (3) Inservice teachers with greater number of years of teaching experience viewed the "opportunity to apply" and "perceived value" of specified CORE instructional objectives more positively then inservice teachers with less teaching experience. (4) Inservice teachers working in self-contained classroom settings had greater "opportunity to apply" specified CORE instructional objectives than inservice teachers working in departmentalized classrooms or non-traditional classroom settings. (5) Inservice teachers working with students at the primary and intermediate grade levels had greater "opportunity to apply" specified CORE instructional objectives than inservice teachers teaching at upper levels or combination of classroom levels. (6) The type of classroom organizational pattern and the grade level of teaching responsibility engaged in by inservice teachers had no significant relationship to graduates' perception of the "perceived value" of specified CORE instructional objectives.