A Lens-Model Approach To the Evaluation of Consumer Experience With Special Education Service Delivery

Abstract

An adaptation of Egon Brunswik's lens-model methodology was used for evaluation of consumer judgments concerning overall effectiveness of a special education in-service training program for rural-area handicapped preschool children and their families. Relevant variables associated with the estimates of the quality of service were identified. Service-delivery personnel utilized these variables in estimating consumer judgments concerning program effectiveness. The ways in which the 2 groups utilized the cues were compared. Multiple regression analysis revealed that for both groups a substantial portion of the variance associated with the criterion could be accounted for by a set of 3 predictor variables related to the professional ecologies and personality characteristics of the consumers as well as to the project's influence on specific skill acquisition. Discussion centers on the strength of a lens-model approach for evaluation tasks relating to subject judgments.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Brunswik, E. Systematic and representative design of psychological experiments, with results in physical and social perception. In J. Neyman , (Ed.), Proceedings of the Berkeley symposium on mathematical statistics and probability. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949, 143-202.

Brunswik, E. Perception and the representative design of psychological experiments . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956

Hammond, H.R. , Stewart T. R. , Brehmer, B. , & Steinman, P.O. Social judgment theory. In M. E Kaplan & S. Schwartz (Eds.). Human judgment and decision processes. New York: Academic Press, 1975.

Hammond, H. R. , & Wascoe, N. E. (Eds.). New directions for methodology of social and behavioral science: Realizations of Brunswik's representative design. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980 .

Hogge, J.H. , Fellendorf, G.W. , & Wuescher, L. A delivery service index: Basis in evaluation judgments. Evaluation Quarterly, 1979, 3, 643-660.

Nunnally, J.C. Psychometric theory. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.

Gabel, H. (Principal Investigator). Family, Infant, and Toddler Project. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education, Handicapped Children's Early Education Program (OEG No. G00-78-02932), 1977-1981.