A knowledge utilization investigation of the adoption of a consultation-based service delivery model by multidisciplinary teams
Abstract
This exploratory study was conducted to investigate the status of the adoption and utilization of a consultation role by a randomly chosen sample of multidisciplinary team (MDT) members in the state of New Jersey. The three professional role identities of school psychology, school social work, and educational specialist were selected for this study because they work together via a multidisciplinary team structure in the public schools. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model was chosen from the knowledge utilization literature as the theoretical framework to investigate the process of and influences on this increasingly promoted role change for the MDT members who participated in this study. Specifically studied was where MDT members were in the process of adopting and implementing consultation, both with regard to their concerns about and actual implementation of the dimensions of this role, and the relationship of selected personal, innovation, and organizational variables on this role change process. The analysis of the participants' responses to the research questionnaire indicated that the majority of these MDT members had not yet entered into or were only at the beginning of the innovation-decision process regarding the adoption of a consultation role for their professional practice. The variables of role change need, consultation knowledge, the perceived attributes of complexity, cost, and compatibility, and the organizational climate variables of autonomy and innovation were found to correlate significantly with several of the concerns stages measured by the Stages of Concerns Questionnaire and contributed significantly to the multiple regression predictive equations for each of the seven concerns stages. The analysis of the Consultation Utilization Profile, an instrument developed for this study to measure implementation fidelity, indicated that the majority of these MDT members were not truly using the indirect services premise of consultation, were not utilizing a formal model in its implementation, and generally using it primarily from a traditional service delivery approach with an emphasis on direct testing and interventions for school-related problems.
Subject Area
Educational psychology|Academic guidance counseling
Recommended Citation
Hughes, Candice Ann, "A knowledge utilization investigation of the adoption of a consultation-based service delivery model by multidisciplinary teams" (1993). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI9328413.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI9328413
