Andrews University

School of Education

A REFLECTIVE RESEARCHER: SKILLS IN CONDUCTING RESEARCH

A QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH PROJECT

Presented in Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

By

Pamela C. Forbes

October 2011

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Contents

I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 3

II. The Survey ........................................................................................................................... 4

III. The Data ............................................................................................................................... 5

IV. Observations/Conclusions.................................................................................................... 9

V. Concerns .............................................................................................................................. 9

References ..................................................................................................................................... 10

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I. Introduction

In 2007, the superintendent gave me a book entitled Human Sigma: Managing the

Employee-Customer Encounter (Fleming & Asplund, 2007) for my birthday. He said he got it for

fun and though he had not read the book he thought I might find it interesting. I did find it

interesting and decided to see if I could make application of its principles to the education office.

Two flawed assumptions in employee-customer encounters are; 1) assuming “that human

interaction always follows the same rules”, is consistent and predictable; and 2) thinking “that all

employees should be able to provide exceptional service in exactly the same ways”, is scriptable

and trainable (Fleming & Asplund, 2007, p. 42). I immediately thought of teachers and their

delivery of education to the students. To make either of these assumptions in education would be

just as flawed as in business. I thought about teacher evaluations. Were there flawed assumptions

in the process? In addition, what about other policies and mandates from our office? Could this

process effect the overall satisfaction and ultimately the performance of the teachers? If teachers

are the “customers” of the education office, what was their overall satisfaction levels?

Customer satisfaction in terms of “conformance to requirements” (p.75) to their

expectations has traditionally seemed the correct thing to measure. However, the book raises the

issue of whether this actually measures anything of real value. An example of this would be

Disney asking people to fill out a survey asking for experiences that people found unpleasant.

The feedback indicated that people did not like the long lines they had to wait in for certain

activities. However, even though the people did not like the line, they continued to stand in line

regardless of the length of the line or the weather conditions. The feedback from that survey

provided very little insight into what the people really wanted. Maybe asking different questions

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could provide us with better information, information that might help a company to “self-

regulate” how they handle things.

According to Charles Evans Hughes, Chief justice of the United States from 1930-1940,

ninety percent of any decision is emotional (Fleming & Asplund, 2007, p. 65). Contrary to

popular perception, the Human Sigma approach believes that emotional traits are quite

predictable. The key to superior performance and long-term growth requires accepting human

nature and using it to manage, motivate, accelerate their development, and engage the

employees’ emotions.

Human Sigma outlines four dimensions of emotional attachment. Confidence is the

foundation on which higher levels of emotional attachments build. Confidence involves

trustworthiness. Integrity naturally follows and includes the scope of fair play. The next

emotional requirement is Pride in being associated with a particular company. A person who

feels pleasure or satisfaction over something regarded as honorable or creditable to oneself has

pride in that organization. The fourth emotional attachment is Passion, a feeling that the

company is irreplaceable and a perfect fit for him or her. This level of engagement is rare, and

attaining a passionate employee/customer, you have their loyalty for life, which is like gold to

the company.

II. The Survey

I wanted to see if it would be possible to take the principles outlined by Human Sigma

and develop a set of questions applicable to educators and our office to measure the levels of

teacher satisfaction in the Carolina Conference. Below, in Table 1, are the nine statements I

developed for this survey. The teachers were to mark the box that best represented how they felt

about each statement. The choices were, Always, Usually, Occasionally, and Never.

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Carolina Conference Teacher Satisfaction Survey Questions Dimension one: Confidence

A. The Education Office delivers on their promise. B. I can trust the Education Office to always do what they say they will do.

Dimension two: Integrity

C. The Education Office always works to be fair with resolution to my problems. D. The Education Office treats me fairly in every way.

Dimension three: Pride

E. The Education Office treats me with respect at all times. F. I am proud to be a part of Carolina Conference.

Dimension four: Passion

G. The Carolina Conference is the perfect place for me to teach. H. I can reach my full potential in the Carolina Conference. I. I know I am a valuable contribution that the Education Office highly needs.

Table 1: Carolina Conference Teacher Satisfaction Survey Based on Human Sigma (Fleming & Asplund, 2007)

The Carolina Teachers responded to these survey questions in 2008, 2009, 2010, and

2011. The information was distributed and collected through SurveyMonkey® online at

http://www.surveymonkey.com (SurveyMonkey, 1999-2011). I collected the responses

anonymously in an effort to collect a more accurate reflection of the teachers’ true feelings and

perceptions. Below are the responses for each year.

III. The Data

Figures 1 through 4 graphs the total percentage responses for each choice during the

spring of four consecutive years. Figure 5 shows a comparison between the numbers of surveys

sent and the number of actual responses for each year. Table 2 provides the actual percentages.

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IV. Observations/Conclusions

It is interesting to note that I consistently received fewer responses each year in

comparison to the number of responses sent over the four-year span. When you combine the

Always and Usually column percentages, 2008 = 93%, 2009 = 99%, 2010 = 97%, and 2011 =

97%, you have the teacher satisfaction levels quite high for all four years. The school year of

2008-2009 (surveys were in the spring or end of each school year) has the highest level of

teacher satisfaction according to the surveys. However, it is important to notice a shift is

occurring from Always to Usually. If this shift continues, an overall change in the satisfaction of

the teacher could move into an undesirable category.

Monitoring this shift will be important for helping teachers be at their ultimate best. The

Education Office might consider looking at what has changed over the past two or three years

that might cause a shift in the negative direction. This survey could provide a tool for the

Education Office to use the feedback as a guide for self-regulating administrative behaviors to

keep the responses at a high level of satisfaction. Some questions to ask are what were we doing

in 2008-2009? How many new teachers have joined the conference since the high year? What

are we doing now that we were not doing then? Could we get more specific information from the

teachers about what they are needing?

V. Concerns

Before I place a significant amount of information on the results of this survey, it would

be wise to establish the reliability of the survey. Is it measuring what we want it to measure?

There are three aspects of reliability, namely: equivalence, stability, and internal consistency

(homogeneity). I may not need to do all three, but some consideration should be given to ensure

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the survey is a reliable survey (Miller, 2011). This is something I might do in the future to

establish the instrument as a valid measure of teacher satisfaction in our conference.

References

Fleming, J. H., & Asplund, J. (2007). Human sigma. New York: Gallup Press.

Miller, M. (2011). RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY. Retrieved October 25, 22011, from www.michaeljmillerphd.com/res500.../reliability_and_validity.pdf

SurveyMonkey. (1999-2011). SurveyMonky TM. from http://www.surveymonkey.com/