Date of Award
5-31-1986
Document Type
Dissertation - NSU Access Only
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Advisor
Dr. George Barton
Abstract
Five vocational, technical, and adult education (VTAE) districts in the Wisconsin vocational-technical system have been organized into the East-Central Wisconsin YTAE Consortium to maximize use of member districts resources for improving services to their constituency. In 1984 the five districts began to experience a decline in enrollments which indicated a need to explore the marketing plan and institutional image. The importance of views and efforts of the internal publics, especially the faculty, support staff, and management, to the overall image projected by the educational institution and the subsequent marketing efforts was acknowledged. A need to treat faculty and staff as a market, and to determine their views of the institutional image of the Wisconsin VTAE system, was recognized. The purpose of the study was to determine if ratings on aspects of the image of the Wisconsin VTAE system or related to membership in one of the three staff categories. Relationship of ratings to employment in one of the five VTAE districts in the East Central Wisconsin VTAE Consortium was also explored. Aspects of image related to the Wisconsin VTAE system were determined through oral interviews with marketing representatives at each of the five-member institutions. An adaptation of the semantic differential using pairs of descriptive phrases to determine perception of the current image status in the ideal image status was employed to develop the questionnaire for the study. The perception questionnaire was distributed to a 25 percent stratified random sample of support staff, faculty, and management staff in each of the five districts to the East Central Wisconsin VTAE Consortium the overall return was 74 percent of surveys mailed. Data was tallied by frequency of response by individual district, and also by total responses in each staff category. A chi square calculation was performed for each image attribute based on the two groupings of the responses, and by comparison of individual responses of current to ideal image. Three hypotheses were tested. One involved the relationship to staff category and ratings on image aspects. The second involved the relationship between employment at a particular institution in the five district consortium and ratings on aspects of image. The third involved the relationship of the perception of current image to ideal image Significant chi square values indicated a relationship between ratings of current image factors and membership in a category of staff for six of the fourteen image factors identified. There was a significant relationship shown between employment at one of the five VTAE districts and ratings on seven of the fourteen image factors. Based on comparison of frequency ratings of all respondents to current versus ideal status, the largest percentage in both categories agreed on eleven factors of image: large enrollment, superior academic reputation, inexpensive tuition, high exposure of community to school, personal atmosphere, close to home for students, innovative, superior faculty, superior job placement for graduates, high repute, and high visibility. On three image factors, the current image rating differed from the ideal: low socioeconomic student body, ineffective administration, and inferior social and athletic activities. It was concluded the current image perceived by these internal public surveyed was in most cases positive. It was recommended that they be considered for inclusion in marketing strategies to improve enrollments. It was also suggested that the study be presented to the consortium governing boards, CEOs, and marketing representatives for consideration when developing marketing plans. Five vocational, technical, and adult education (VTAE) districts in the Wisconsin vocational-technical system have been organized into the East-Central Wisconsin YTAE Consortium to maximize use of member districts resources for improving services to their constituency. In 1984 the five districts began to experience a decline in enrollments which indicated a need to explore the marketing plan and institutional image. The importance of views and efforts of the internal publics, especially the faculty, support staff, and management, to the overall image projected by the educational institution and the subsequent marketing efforts was acknowledged. A need to treat faculty and staff as a market, and to determine their views of the institutional image of the Wisconsin VTAE system, was recognized. The purpose of the study was to determine if ratings on aspects of the image of the Wisconsin VTAE system or related to membership in one of the three staff categories. Relationship of ratings to employment in one of the five VTAE districts in the East Central Wisconsin VTAE Consortium was also explored. Aspects of image related to the Wisconsin VTAE system were determined through oral interviews with marketing representatives at each of the five-member institutions. An adaptation of the semantic differential using pairs of descriptive phrases to determine perception of the current image status in the ideal image status was employed to develop the questionnaire for the study. The perception questionnaire was distributed to a 25 percent stratified random sample of support staff, faculty, and management staff in each of the five districts to the East Central Wisconsin VTAE Consortium the overall return was 74 percent of surveys mailed. Data was tallied by frequency of response by individual district, and also by total responses in each staff category. A chi square calculation was performed for each image attribute based on the two groupings of the responses, and by comparison of individual responses of current to ideal image. Three hypotheses were tested. One involved the relationship to staff category and ratings on image aspects. The second involved the relationship between employment at a particular institution in the five district consortium and ratings on aspects of image. The third involved the relationship of the perception of current image to ideal image Significant chi square values indicated a relationship between ratings of current image factors and membership in a category of staff for six of the fourteen image factors identified. There was a significant relationship shown between employment at one of the five VTAE districts and ratings on seven of the fourteen image factors. Based on comparison of frequency ratings of all respondents to current versus ideal status, the largest percentage in both categories agreed on eleven factors of image: large enrollment, superior academic reputation, inexpensive tuition, high exposure of community to school, personal atmosphere, close to home for students, innovative, superior faculty, superior job placement for graduates, high repute, and high visibility. On three image factors, the current image rating differed from the ideal: low socioeconomic student body, ineffective administration, and inferior social and athletic activities. It was concluded the current image perceived by these internal public surveyed was in most cases positive. It was recommended that they be considered for inclusion in marketing strategies to improve enrollments. It was also suggested that the study be presented to the consortium governing boards, CEOs, and marketing representatives for consideration when developing marketing plans.