Date of Award
4-21-1991
Document Type
Dissertation - NSU Access Only
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Abstract
This report describes an intervention in the implementation of strategies for group decision making by two committees in a secondary school. Teacher unrest with the decision-making process existed at this school as measured by responses on a school wide self-evaluation tool. questionnaires, comments made in meetings, interviews, letters end the faculty successfully petitioning to rescind a decision that had been made by a committee. The intervention was designed to increase the group decision-making skills of the members, including the principal, of the Faculty Advisory Council (FAC) and the department chairs. A skill development model of training, practicing, monitoring, receiving feedback and coaching was planned for both groups. The skill development model was used with the members of the FAC. Significant gains, as measured by ẕ the test of proportions, were accomplished in the faculty's acceptance of the decisions the group made. The practice of identifying the decision-making process before it was used increased significantly, as measured by the ẕ test of proportion. The chi-square test was used to compare the consistency in articulating role expectations before and after the intervention. The results were highly significant. As a result of a crisis event in the school, double-shifting, the skill development model was not used with the department chairs. Their assumption of task initiation functions regressed. The historical account of the alternative intervention, working with the principal alone, provides some insights into the change process. A side-effect was a significant increase, as measured by the ẕ test of proportions, of the faculty’s perception of the principal’s effectiveness on the self-evaluation tool that had been a primary indicator of the need for the intervention.