An Investigation of Multidisciplinary Team Decision-Making

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Abstract
The aim of this investigation was to determine if special education placement decisions made by multidisciplinary teams are superior to those decisions made by team members acting independently. Two actual psychological cases were presented to 86 professionals from 22 teams on two occasions; the professionals first evaluated the cases alone, and then within their respective teams. Results indicate that the teams exhibited significantly less variability in placement decisions than the same specialists acting independently, supporting the efficacy of the multidisciplinary team. It was also found that representatives of the three disciplines (administrators, school psychologists, and special educators) did not significantly differ from one another in the amount of shifting during the team placement condition, suggesting that no one profession dominated the group decision-making process.