The Effect of Organizational Structure on Perceived Teaching Efficacy in Classrooms for Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

A survey research design was used to examine the relationship between organizational structure and personal and teaching efficacy. Subjects were drawn from a randomly selected 15% of the teachers of students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders (E/BD) in the state of Virginia . A researcher constructed questionnaire was used to gather data on the attitudes of organizational structure, and an instrument developed by DiBella-McCarthy, McDaniel and Miller (1995) was used to determine high and low teaching and personal efficacy. Fifty-three percent of the questionnaires were returned and analyzed with independent sample t-tests and a one-way Analysis of Variance. An independent sample t-test comparing organizational structure and teaching efficacy was found to be significant (t=-2 .31, df= 63) at the .05 level. Further research is recommended to explore relationships between isolation and interaction of special educators with other teachers in the school