The Measurement of Family Perspectives on Extended School Year Practices with Students in Special Education

Abstract

Although the provision of services beyond the traditional 180-day school year to students with disabilities-or extended school year (ESY) programs-has become a major national issue, there is a paucity of investigations designed to measure family perspectives on what ESY practices have been experienced and subsequently viewed as efficacious. The purpose of this study was to obtain validity and reliability indexes for scores on a 12-item scale developed as a result of a Louisiana consent decree that mandated the development and monitoring of guidelines for the provision of ESY services. Principal components analysis was conducted on the responses of 128 families that contained a member potentially eligible for ESY services. Results indicated that a two-component model was both valid and interpretable. Cronbach's alphas for total scale scores and the two components indicated acceptable internal consistency reliability levels.