The purpose of this study was to determine special education teachers' perceptions of goals used to teach secondary mildly handicapped students and to identify hindrances to adopting these goals. A questionnaire was developed and attitudes were assessed by collecting data from secondary special education teachers who taught in the areas of learning disabilities, emotional disturbances, and educable mental retardation. A large suburban school district located in the southeastern united states comprised the survey (census) population.

Repeated measure analysis of variance tested for significant differences across teaching exceptionalities toward perceived acceptance and implementation of selected goals. Chi-square analyses tested for any relationships between acceptance and implementation of these goals, as well as teacher relationships toward classification of goals.

The findings of this study indicated that teachers of secondary mildly handicapped students exhibited very high acceptance for remedial, maintenance and functional goals for special education. Maintenance goals were perceived to be most important to LD teachers while functional ones were important to EMR instructors. Remedial goals were equally accepted by the LD, ED, and EMR sectors. There was a relatively high rate of implementation for remedial goals for all the teaching groups with no difference in the degree of implementation across the three exceptionalities noted. LD teachers implemented remedial and maintenance goals more than functional ones. ED instructors implemented remedial goals most often, while EMR teachers instructed the most in the functional area. In some instances, especially in the functional area, teachers did not implement specific goals which they perceived to be acceptable. Lack of time was the greatest instructional barrier for LD teachers while parent support hindered ED instructors the most. Diploma. requirements were the most formidable instructional hindrance for the EMR sector. Classroom teachers did not always classify instructional goals in the same manner as experts in the field, and this trend was noted more often in the classification of remedial goals.