This Q methodology study focused on the perspectives of diverse community leaders concerning how their perceptions of leadership behaviors and practices were used to influence K-12 public education. The leaders’ perspectives were identified, described, analyzed, and compared with others who shared similar views through the use of Q methodology. Through purposeful and snowball sampling, a diverse group of community leader participants first responded to an open-ended questionnaire, inviting them to provide the leadership behaviors and practices they use to influence K-12 public education. This process of concourse development resulted in a total of 263 statements. These statements were then systematically reduced to 42 statements to be used in the Q sample, or research instrument. The Q sample represented the broad perspectives of the opinion domain and specifically addressed the content of the research question: How do community leaders perceive that their leadership behaviors and practices are used to influence K-12 public education? In the second stage of this Q methodology study, 45 community leader participants sorted these 42 statements to best reflect how they believed they most influenced public education. Following each sort, participants provided a rationale for their ± 4 statements which were used to further inform the data interpretation.
These 45 Q sorts were then correlated to one another, and these intercorrelations were factor analyzed. Four factors were then rotated and extracted for this study. These four factors were analyzed abductively through examining the holistic placement of statements within their respective factor arrays, the descriptive comments provided following the Q sorts, and the demographic characteristics of the participants who comprised each factor. As a result of this analysis, the four factors were named: (a) Voice the Story and the Needs of My Underserved Community, (b) Provide Resources, Advocacy, and Grassroots Mobility, (c) Learn About Educational Issues to Lobby and to Serve, and (d) Build Supportive and Personal Relationships with Key School Stakeholders to Stay Informed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unf.edu/oai:digitalcommons.unf.edu:etd-1601 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| Creators | Keisling, Mai Dinh |
| Publisher | UNF Digital Commons |
| Source Sets | University of North Florida |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | UNF Theses and Dissertations |
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