A longitudinal study of the changes in staff development and professional growth opportunities as reflected in the master contracts of the public school corporations of Indiana, 1982-1983 and 1988-1989

The purpose of the study was to determine if the language of the negotiated agreements of Indiana School Corporations was reflected in professional growth and staff development activities. Collective bargaining agreements during 1982-1983 and 1988-1989 from 289 Indiana School Corporations were compared to identify the existence, if any, of (a) a trend in the acknowledgement of professional growth and staff development-related statements found in the contracts, and (b) policy statements delineating how staff development activities and curriculum-related activities were to be conducted in schools. Contract language in which comparisons appeared to be significant were subjected to the Friedman Two-way Analysis of Variance (Friedman ANOVA) to determine whether or not comparisons were statistically significant at the .05 level. Such statistically significant comparisons also helped to determine whether or not school corporations incorporated contract language, which gave instructional staff a legal position in decisions which affected teacher professional growth and participation in curriculum-related matters.Conclusions1. Compared to small enrollment Indiana School Corporations (3,000 students or less), large enrollment Indiana School Corporations (3,001 or more students) were more likely than statistically expected to provide salary compensation for higher levels of teacher education training and sabbatical leave compensation at statistically significant levels of .05 or less, based upon use of the chi-square statistic.2. The research findings failed to support movement toward greater Indiana School Corporation contract language in 1982-1983 and 1988-1989 in most of the specified staff development factors under investigation in the research. Therefore, contrary to the literature which claimed that collective bargaining would be used as a vehicle for staff development change, collective bargaining has not provided structural support for such change among Indiana School Corporations.Department of Educational LeadershipThesis (D. Ed.