While educational reform has involved everything from curricular changes (e.g., whole language, cooperative learning, integrated technology,) to community involvement (e.g., business partners, community leaders, and parents), this study focused on school-based reform efforts. Specifically, those efforts which involve the changing roles of teachers and administrators, and the projected educational outcomes of such changing roles on job satisfaction for teachers. / The present study investigated teacher empowerment, transformational leadership and job satisfaction from teachers in twenty-two elementary schools in a North Florida school district that implemented district-wide school reform in 1989. Relationships were identified using two instruments: Rensis Likert's "Profile of a School" for investigating school leadership and job satisfaction, and The Carnegie Foundation's "National Survey of Public School Teachers" for addressing teacher empowerment. / The purpose of this study was to produce a model for the prediction of job satisfaction from the knowledge provided by the linear combination of teacher empowerment and transformational leadership. Using this model, the linear combination of the two specified independent variables was statistically significant. The results of the follow-up tests on the contributions of each of the independent variables showed only transformational leadership being statistically significant. This might be explained by the joint variability between the two independent variables. A cross-validation procedure was also employed to the original prediction equation and did provide some support for the use of the equation for the prediction of job satisfaction. Additionally, anecdotal comments from teachers in four schools (the two highest and lowest in job satisfaction) are reported. / The emphasis on teacher empowerment and transformational leadership towards job satisfaction in this study was supported by both the literature and the findings from the data. It is clear that these variables need to be properly regarded in schools, not only for teachers, but for administrators, parents, and students. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4223. / Major Professor: John H. Hansen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This study examined rural education scholars' claims that educational policy makers should pay more attention to location variables: rural, suburban and urban. The policy issue chosen was teacher job satisfaction in Florida. Based on rural education theories, the researcher expected to find distinct differences between rural and urban teachers on factors of job satisfaction. Differences found in this study would support these rural scholars' claims. / The research questions of this study were: (1) Does a difference exist between rural teachers' and urban teachers' perceptions of factors influencing their job satisfaction? (2) What is the nature of the difference, if any? (3) Can the difference found, or lack of such, be explained by existing rural education theories? / A secondary analysis of data from the Florida Educational Standards Commission (FESC) was conducted. The survey contained three parts: (1) structured questions on job satisfiers; (2) open-ended questions on teachers' three major dissatisfiers; and (3) demographic information. A random sample of 201 Florida teachers was selected. The survey achieved a 100 percent response rate. / The analyses included: (1) a comparison of response frequencies by urban, suburban, and rural groups; and (2) a discriminant analysis by factor on the structured questions. Six job satisfaction factors were developed by grouping survey items according to operationalized factors in the literature. / A statistically significant difference between groups was found. The difference found, however, was between rural and suburban teachers, whereas differences were anticipated between rural and urban teachers. This makes sense theoretically since the dominant educational model has been Conant's consolidated, suburban school. A major recommendation was that rural educators need to make careful distinctions between "urban" and "suburban." Statistically significant findings were: (1) community differentiates rural and suburban teachers; (2) professional development differentiates the primary and secondary teachers; and (3) internal school management differentiates the primary and secondary teachers by rural and suburban locations. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-08, Section: A, page: 2051. / Major Professor: Sydney R. Grant. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

This study presents the possibilities of the use of commodity futures cycles in the management of university endowment portfolios. The literature review presents a discussion concerning the roles of various cycles in research, and delineates the scope of commodity spreads and their use in managing educational endowment portfolios. / Cycle analysis was used in this study to examine the data. The daily closing prices of five selected commodities covering time periods of about one to five years comprised the data. A computer program was used to calculate the differences (spreads) between the closing prices of the various commodities. / The computer programs, the Statistical Analysis System (SAS), was used for spectral analysis to investigate the presence of cycles in the data for the various spreads. The significance of the results was tested using the SAS Spectra Whitetest option which gives a printed output of Fisher's Kappa statistic and the Bartlett Komolgorov-Smirnov (K-S) test statistic. / The analysis yielded cyclical effects at each of three time frames: a 261.0-day cycle and a 163.12-day cycle in the long-term spreads; a 156.6-day cycle in the intermediate-term spreads; and, a 52.2-day cycle in the short-term spreads. Although the analysis produced useful information as to the relative strength of the periodic effects for various cycles, the exact turning point for a given cycle could not be precisely determined. / It was concluded that a manager or investor familiar with the spread cycles could incorporate information derived from cycle analysis into portfolio management techniques and trading strategies. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-11, Section: A, page: 3436. / Major Professor: Frank W. Banghart. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 38-04, Section: A, page: 1782. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.

The history of post-independence Guinean education is characterized by numerous reforms which could be grouped into five periods: A national unity period following the end of the French colonization, a political streamlining phase triggered by the 1961 riots, the 1970's militancy era of the Cultural Revolution, a prudent return to Western models resulting mostly from the 1977 troubles, and the relevancy period following the 1984 military coup d'etat. / The study carried out an historical analysis of these periods and focused on the changes undertaken between 1958 and 1977. It found the dominant role of political considerations in reform policies which were often guided by such considerations as coalitions building, political constituencies reshuffling, control and use of student activism, reaction to international political developments, and political control of opponents. / These reforms left a deep imprint on Guinea education. They developed a high political sensibility among educators and administrators, fostered an organizational insecurity in the system, and impeded to some extent, a true people's participation to the actualization of the reforms. Often, reforms were perceived not in terms of their academic potential, but their unspoken agenda to advance or combat political causes, and to alter or reinforce balance of power among interested groups. / The study found similar characteristics in reforms undertaken in India, Tanzania, Zaire, and Peru. / The study recommends full consideration be given to the political dimension of education in the assessment of success and failures of reforms, and in the design and conduct of policy reforms in developing countries. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-10, Section: A, page: 3482. / Major Professor: Clyde Maurice. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The purpose of the study was to describe the differences and similarities in the knowledge structures (cognitive scripts) of expert and novice elementary school principals on the same common task in a specified area of job performance. Consistent with this purpose, the study was designed to: (a) determine if expert and novice elementary principals hold commonly shared cognitive scripts for common work tasks; (b) describe and compare the knowledge structures of expert elementary principals on the same common task in a specified area of performance; (c) describe and compare the knowledge structures of novice elementary principals on the same common task in a specified area of performance; and (d) compare the knowledge structures of expert elementary principals with the knowledge structures of novice principals on the same common task. / The cognitive knowledge structures of ten expert and ten novice north Georgia elementary principals was studied using a research design similar to the one used in the fundamental research on the nature of managerial cognitive knowledge structures conducted by Longenecker, Gioia, and Sims (1983). The research design for this study included five steps: generating, coding, sorting/labelling, retranslating, and analyzing the cognitive scripts of the expert and novice elementary principals. / From the results of this study it was concluded that expert elementary school principals retain well-defined, procedurally specific cognitive scripts, for the common task described in this study. Novice elementary school principals however, retain only moderately well-defined, cognitive scripts for the common task described in this study. / Additionally, it was concluded that while expert and novice elementary school principals retain similar scripts for the common work task described in this study; the degree of similarity in content and structure varies significantly. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-10, Section: A, page: 3484. / Major Professor: William R. Snyder. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Investigated were the effects of nonverbal immediacy behavior on intramural athlete's perception of administrator's communication effectiveness. Forty-eight intramural athletes participated in a 10 minute interview with an athletic administrator. / The administrators (one female, one male) exhibited one of two assigned behaviors, immediacy or nonimmediacy. The administrator during immediacy behavior interviews made designated eye contacts, sat three feet from the athlete, had direct body orientation toward the athlete, had a 30 degree forward lean, and touched the athlete. During nonimmediacy behavior, the administrators had less designated eye contact, sat five feet from the athlete, had non direct body orientation, sat up straight, and did not touch the athlete. / Upon completion of the interview, the athlete completed the administrator's evaluation which measured perceived effective communication. The researcher hypothesized that the: (1) athletes would perceive both administrators as communicating more effectively during immediacy behavior, (2) female administrator would be percieved by both athletes as communicating more effectively than the male administrator while exhibiting immediacy behavior, and (3) female athletes would perceive both administrators higher in both behaviors compared to the male athletes. / The results of the three way analysis of variance revealed no significance at the.05 level. The following conclusions were made: (a) the athlete did more talking and less looking than the administrator; (b) the administrator was an unfamiliar communicator; (c) the immediacy behaviors may have been too subtle; and (d) the questions on the administrator' s evaluation may not have captured the differences that were felt by the athletes. / It was recommended that (a) the administrator and the athlete spend the same amount of time talking and listening, (b) the study be conducted with familiar communicators, (c) have an evaluation conducted at different levels of time from the interview, (d) exaggerate the nonverbal behaviors, and (e) use different measurements to see if the responses were physiological. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-10, Section: A, page: 3556. / Major Professor: Dewayne J. Johnson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The cluster college, rooted in a medieval tradition of undergraduate teaching, emphasized small, close-knit living-learning units. It re-emerged in the 1960s as one possible solution to demands by students for change in higher education institutions. The University of West Florida, opened in 1967, was organized into three non-traditional, interdisciplinary cluster colleges with emphasis on fostering close student-faculty relationships. Students and faculty were to interact in common areas assigned to the colleges. However, in 1979 The University was reorganized into a traditional structure with colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education. The purpose of the study was to determine why administrators and faculty chose to abandon the cluster colleges. / Examination of primary and secondary sources and oral history interviews permitted the researcher to investigate the processes involved in innovation and change in two newly established universities. The study focused on the motivations of the actors who made decisions to create and then change the innovation. / The researcher found that curricular and organizational innovations in higher education move on a continuum that closely follow societal change. Using the cluster organization at The University of West Florida and the University of California at Santa Cruz was a noble attempt to personalize undergraduate education at a time of rapid growth and depersonalization of the academic experience. However, the attempts were not completely successful because changes in society and in higher education rendered much of the cluster college concept obsolete. Students and faculty lacked common interests and were not committed to the success of the organization. In particular, faculty, supported the organization when hired but quickly desired to be affiliated with their discipline for professional growth, and thus, support for the cluster college faded. Departure of the founding leaders marked a critical point in the cluster colleges' survival. Lack of an advocate at the state level in Florida further undermined the organization. While a modified version of the cluster organization still functions at Santa Cruz, only isolated vestiges of the organization exist at West Florida. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 0752. / Major Professor: Robert G. Stakenas. / Thesis (Ed.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the differences between Division I-A ranked and unranked football departments in relation to the organizational structure. / Subjects for the study were Division I-A head football coaches. The Football Organization Survey instrument was used and measured the level of complexity, formalization, and centralization present in the organizational structure of the football departments. / The three components of complexity measured were horizontal differentiation, vertical differentiation, and geographic dispersion. The five components of formalization were: the degree to which job descriptions and regulations are specified, the degree of supervision, the amount of freedom given to subordinates and managers, the degree of work standardization, and the degree to which regulations exist. The two components of centralization measured were the degree of influence the head football coach has over key parts of the decision-making process, and the amount of discretion that the assistant football coach has over critical elements in his job. / Two types of analysis were conducted. A t-test was conducted on the mean scores for complexity, formalization, and centralization between the ranked and unranked programs. The individual questions were analyzed using frequency, mean, median, mode and standard deviation between the ranked and unranked programs. / There was no significant difference found between the level of complexity, formalization, and centralization present in the ranked and unranked football programs. There was a low degree of complexity, high level of formalization, and a moderate amount of centralization present in the ranked and unranked football programs. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 0763. / Major Professor: Dewayne Johnson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The purpose of this study was to conceptually and empirically validate the five generic components and the systems nature of Snyder's Comprehensive Vision System (CVS). Another purpose of this study was to determine the utility of the CVS as a tool for guiding the process of developing a comprehensive organization vision and using that vision to prompt action by the internal organization members for organization improvement initiatives. The validation process was conducted using an exploratory, single case study research design. The unit of analysis in this case study was a single, urban high school in Central Florida. / The major conclusions about schools and vision development are that (a) organizational vision development is in its infancy, and (b) some fundamental features of schools as an organization and as a social system are being overlooked by organizational leaders and members as important considerations that influence the effective functioning and health of the organization. The major conclusions regarding the systems nature of the CVS are that it (a) expands the concept of the school as a social system and may be incorporated into an enhanced representation of this social system nature, and (b) represents some foundational components of an organization as a social system that require constant and purposeful attention in order to understand and enhance the organizational health and competence of that organization. The major conclusion regarding the CVS as a tool is that it (a) guides the development of a site-specific, comprehensive organizational vision. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 0763. / Major Professor: William R. Snyder. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.