The relationship between selected characteristics of Indiana public school corporations and the occurrence of impasse

The problem of the study was to determine if a relationship existed between selected characteristics of Indiana public school corporations and the occurrence of impasse with teacher units during the process of collective bargaining in 1975.The fifteen selected characteristics of Indiana public school corporations chosen for the study were: student enrollment; average student-teacher ratio; adjusted assessed valuation per resident average daily attendance; annual net current operating expenditures per year end average daily attendance; mean age of teachers; age of the superintendent of schools; mean educational training of teachers; educational training of the superintendent of schools; mean educational experience of teachers; educational experience of the superintendent of schools; the location within a specific school corporation of the Uni-Sere office of the Indiana State Teachers-Association; past impasse history; the identification of a school corporation as being urban, suburban or rural; and he differential occupation of the school board spokesperson on the collective bargaining team.Data for the fifteen selected characteristics were obtained from the Indiana Department of Public Instruction, the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board and the Indiana School Boards Association. A General Null Hypothesis and fifteen Null-Sub-Hypotheses were formulated to test the relationship between selected characteristics of Indiana public school corporations and the occurrence of impasse during 1975. Of the 305 Indiana public school corporations, 246, or 85 per cent were utilized in the study.The multiple point-biserial correlation was used to test the General Null Hypothesis to determine if a relationship existed between the fifteen selected characteristics and the occurrence of impasse during 19.7.5. The point-biserial correlation was utilized to determine the relationship of eleven of the selected characteristics. The chi-square test of independence was used to test the remaining four selected characteristics. The hypotheses were rejected if either of three statistical treatments reached the .05 level of confidence.A significant relationship was found between selected characteristics of Indiana public school corporations and the occurrence of impasse in 1975. The following four characteristics were significant:1. The mean student enrollment was significantly larger for Indiana public school hcorporations that experienced impasse in 1975. There was a relationship between student enrollment and the occurrence of impasse.2. The majority of the school corporations that experienced impasse in 1974 also experienced impasse in 1975. The number of school corporations experiencing impasse in 1575 was greater than the number experiencing impasse in 1974. The number of schoc_ corporations not experiencing impasse in 1974 decreased in 1975. There was a relationship between past impasse history and the occurrence of impasse.3. Indiana public school corporations having teacher units exclusively represented by the Indiana State Teachers Association or the Indiana Federation of Teachers in 1975 significantly experienced impasse more frequently than teacher units that were represented by another teacher organization. There was a relationship between the exclusive representative for teachers and the occurrence of impasse.4. Indiana public school corporations categorized as being urban in 1975 significantly had more impasse occurrences than suburban or rural school corporations. Suburban school corporations significantly had more impasse occurrences than rural school corporations. There was a relationship between an urban, suburban and rural Indiana public school corporation and the occurrence of impasse.In 1975, Indiana public school corporations with larger student enrollments located inurban areas had a greater tendency to experience impasse in the process of collective bargaining than corporations with smaller enrollments located in suburban or rural areas. The likelihood of Indiana public school corporations experiencing impasse in subsequent years was greater after the initial experience with the impasse process. Indiana public school corporations having teacher units exclusively represented by the Indiana State Teachers Association or the Indiana Federation of Teachers were more likely to experience impasse in 1975.Thesis (D. Ed.