A comparison of critical tasks of educational information specialists

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of public school educational informational specialists concerning the critical tasks, present and future, for educational information specialists and to compare these perceptions with the responses obtained from identified experts through the Delphi technique. The population of this study consisted of 690 public school public relations practitioners selected from the NSPRA membership roster and supplement of 1977-78. The sample consisted of 160 systematically selected members of the population. Of the 160 individuals in the sample, 99 returned the questionnaire and 92 provided usable responses to the questionnaire developed in Lester's study. The descriptive statistics were analyzed using frequency distributions. Analysis of variance was used to compare the responses of the experts and practitioner for both now and future perceptions of the critical tasks. The average educational information specialist of this study was 43 years of age, a male with a Master's degree, a certified teacher and administrator with 13 years of educational experience prior to serving as a public relations specialist, and had nine years newspaper experience. ...