The influence of occupation, academic training, age, years of experience, and geographic location on special education due process hearing officers' decisions

This study investigated the influence of occupation, academic training, age, years of experience, and geographic location on the decisions of special education due process hearing officers. Through an analysis of 352 special education due process hearing officers' decisions, the researcher (a) found that 83% of the participants were accurate in their decision, (b) identified a logistic regression model or set of predictors for hearing officers' decisions, and (c) identified the logistic regression model that was the most efficient in predicting hearing officers' decisions. The analysis showed that, as a whole, the variables of occupation, academic training, age, years of experience and geographic location were able to predict hearing officers' decisions better than a model that did not consider these predictors. However, academic training was the most important characteristic in predicting hearing officers' decisions. According to the reduced model that only included academic training as a predictor variable, when special education due process hearing officers were trained primarily in education, both legal and education disciplines, or some other area (e.g. social work or clinical psychology), they were more likely to make a correct decision compared with cases when hearing officers had legal training only. Implications for theory and practice are discussed as well as future research direction.