Amostra

Participants were recruited from 49 schools in 30 school districts in six states (Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas). This study was one component of a 5-year longitudinal study examining the impact of interven tions to promote self-determination and student involve ment on self-determination and adult outcomes. Students from this sample who were involved in the Self-Directed IEP (Martin et al., 1996) process or who were in the control group in the study constituted the sample for this examina tion of the effect of the Self-Directed IEP process. Special education teachers collected demographic information, including gender, disability, ethnicity, and level of intellec tual capacity, based on the students’ IEPs regarding current performance, participation in state and district-wide tests, and special education and transition services with measured progress. Unfortunately, intelligence data are collected less often in public schools, so teachers must rely on an estima tion of student capacity that is informed by ongoing IEP information, current student performance, and the nature of student accommodation and material adaptation required for student success. We asked teachers to rate student level of intellectual capacity as follows: within normal limit, within mild limit, within moderate limit, and within severe/ profound limit. Teachers had no difficulty completing this demographic description using the above clinical judgment process. Of the 338 student participants, 143 received instruction using the Self-Directed IEP and 195 were in the control group and did not receive any intervention to promote self determination. Students were randomly assigned to a treat ment group or a control group by high school campus. Teachers in the control group participated in a placebo intervention to promote family involvement. In this study, the students’ ages were between 14.3 and 21.8. The major ity of the participants received special education services under the category of ID (n = 59, 17.5%) or LD (learning disabilities; n = 150, 44.4%). Other participants were served under the categorical areas of Other Health Impairment (OHI; n = 29, 8.6%), Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD; n = 33, 9.8%), Autism (n = 10, 3.0%), and other disabilities (n = 26, 7.7%). Category data on a small number of students were missing (n = 31, 9.2%). The sample was 61.2% male (n = 207) and 38.8% female (n = 131). More than half of the participants were Caucasian (n = 203, 60.1%), and other races/ethnicities are shown in Table 1: African American (n = 34, 10.1%), Hispanic (n = 84, 24.9%), Asian or Pacific Islander (n = 2, 0.6%), Native American/Alaskan Native (n = 2, 0.6%), Other (n = 9, 2.7%), and missing data (n = 4, 1.2%).