Introduction
This chapter outlines the methodology and procedures that was used to conduct research relating to the perceptions of South Carolina public school superintendents regarding individual and organizational attitudes toward innovation. This chapter includes: research questions, research design, population and sample, instrumentation, data collection procedures, data analysis procedures, and reliability and validity.
The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of South Carolina public school superintendents regarding individual and organizational attitudes toward
innovation. Specific characteristics of South Carolina public school superintendents and public school districts, including enrollment, poverty level, school report card grades, age, gender, and years of experience, were analyzed to determine individual
superintendents’ and their school districts’ orientations toward innovation.
Research Questions
The following questions guided the study:
1. What are the perceptions of South Carolina public school superintendents regarding individual attitudes toward innovation and organizational attitudes toward innovation?
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2. Is there a relationship between Individual attitudes toward innovation and organizational attitudes toward innovation?
3. Are differences in perceptions of South Carolina school district superintendents regarding innovations related to organizational variables including district enrollment, financial resources and ESEA grade?
4. Are differences in perceptions of South Carolina school district superintendents regarding innovation related to demographic factors including age, sex, and experience?
Research Design
A quantitative, non-experimental design was chosen for this study. Quantitative data was collected from practicing South Carolina public school superintendents through the use of a survey.
Population and Sample
Each of the 83 public school superintendents currently serving public school districts in South Carolina were the population considered in this study. The data and superintendent contact information for this inquiry was collected from the 2013 South Carolina Association of School Administrators (SCASA) superintendent list. The total number of public school district superintendents participating in this study is 43. Additionally, public domain information from the 2012 South Carolina Department of Education District Data files for all public school districts in South Carolina was examined.
58 Instrumentation
A survey instrument was used to acquire data for this study. The survey was based on James C. McCroskey’s (2006) Communication Research Measures: Individual Innovativeness and Organizational Innovativeness. These are measures that have been developed by researchers who are, or at one time were, faculty members or graduate students at West Virginia University. They were developed for use by researchers and may be used for research or instructional purposes. The remainder of the survey related to individual superintendent demographics was supplemented by the researcher.
The Individual Innovativeness (II) instrument was first introduced by Hurt, Joseph, and Cook (1977). The scale is a measurement tool that determines the categories of innovativeness individuals belong to and identifies their level of innovativeness on the basis of self-reports (Hurt, Joseph & Cook, 1977). Based on the scores found out through the scale, individuals are found to fall into five different categories in terms of
innovativeness: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. Initially, the items of the scale were scored to define the creative and inventive individual through 53 items of seven-point Likert-type items as “Strongly Agree” and “Strongly Disagree”. Later, the items of the scale were reduced to 20 and reorganized to the form of five-point Likert-type as a result of improvement studies. The internal reliability
coefficient of the whole scale was found 0.89 and the split-half reliability coefficient was found 0.92 (Hurt, Joseph & Cook, 1977).
The Organizational Innovativeness (OI) instrument was first introduced by Hurt and Teigen (1977). They developed a direct measure of perceived organizational innovativeness that would permit the researcher to determine from employees their
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perceptions of their organizations’ willingness to change. Hurt and Teigen (1977) used teachers and administrators in the development of their instrument. After rigorous testing, the resulting scale 25 items worded negatively and positively using a 7-point Likert-type scale. Later, the items of the scale were reorganized to the form of five-point Likert-type as a result of improvement studies. They reported that the measure when used produced a range of 25 to 160 with higher score indicating a higher perceived organizational
innovativeness. The maximum range was 25 to 175. The original normative group produced a mean score of 98 with a standard deviation of 28. The split-half reliability of the instrument was reported as .96 (Hurt and Teigen, 1977).
The survey was divided into three sections. Section one, questions 1-5, contained items related to demographic information about the public school district superintendents completing the survey. The superintendents were asked to complete statements regarding age, gender, and years of experience. Section two, questions 6-25, contained items related to public school district superintendents’ perceptions of individual innovativeness.
Section three, questions 26-50, contained items related to public school district superintendents’ perceptions of organizational innovativeness.
Public school superintendents were asked to specify their level of agreement with each of the survey items in section two and three based on a five-point Likert scale. The scale included the options of “Strongly Agree” equaling five points, “Agree” equaling four points, “Neutral” equaling three points, “Disagree” equaling two points, and “Strongly Disagree” equaling one point. Based on the responses from questions 6-25 an Individual Innovativeness Score and adopter category was determined for each
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50 and Organizational Innovativeness Score and adopter category was determined for the district of each responding public school district superintendent.
Data Collection
Approval for data collection was obtained from the University of South Carolina Institutional Review Board (Appendix C). Data for the study was collected through a survey of all the public school district superintendents in South Carolina. Using the Survey Monkey online software, each superintendent received an email explaining the purpose of the study and to solicit their participation (Appendix A). The email document was comprised of a request for participation in the study and assurances of participant confidentiality. Instructions for completing the survey were also included. Completing the consent form by typing their name served as an electronic signature. After completing the consent form, superintendents were taken directly to the II and OI survey (Appendix B). The superintendents were given two weeks to respond after which time a follow-up email was sent to non-respondents as a reminder. When responses are received, the data was downloaded from Survey Monkey for analysis.
For research questions 1and 2, data was collected using sections two and three of the II and OI survey. For research question 3, data was collected using sections two and three of the II and OI survey as well as 2012 South Carolina District Data files and the 2013 Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA) Wavier data. District enrollment was determined using the 2012 Report Card Performance file. The poverty levels of each district were determined using the School Report Card Poverty Index file. For research
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question 4, data was gathered using all three sections of the II and OI survey in conjunction with the 2012 SCASA Superintendent List.
Table 3.1 provides information on variables, the type of data, and the statistics for analysis for each research question.
Table 3.1 Variable Matrix
Questions Variables Source of Data Statistics
What are the perceptions of South Carolina public school superintendents regarding individual attitudes toward innovation and organizational attitudes toward innovation? Independent South Carolina Superintendents Dependent Individual and Organizational Innovativeness survey scores Individual and Organizational Innovativeness survey. Mean Scores Standard Deviations Is there a relationship between
Individual attitudes toward innovation and organizational attitudes toward innovation? Independent Individual Innovation Dependent Organizational Innovation Individual and Organizational Innovativeness survey. Pearson product- moment correlation coefficient (Pearson’s r) Are differences in perceptions of South Carolina school district superintendents regarding innovations related to organizational variables including district enrollment, financial resources and ESEA grade? Independent Organizational data Dependent Perceptions of Superintendents Individual and Organizational Innovativeness survey. South Carolina School Report Card and ESEA Waiver data. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) Unpaired t- tests
62 Table 3.1 continued Are differences in perceptions of South Carolina school district superintendents regarding innovation related to demographic factors including age, sex, and experience? Independent Demographic data Dependent Perceptions of Superintendents Individual and Organizational Innovativeness survey. SCASA District Superintendent List Unpaired t-tests
Purpose of the Study. This study examines superintendents’ perceptions regarding individual and organizational attitudes towards innovation.
Data Analysis
Research Question 1: What are the perceptions of South Carolina public school superintendents regarding individual attitudes toward innovation and organizational attitudes toward innovation?
Survey items 6-50 were calculated based on the responses from South Carolina public school superintendents. Items 6-25 of the survey provided information on their perception of individual innovativeness. Items 26-50 of the survey provided information on their perception of organizational innovativeness for their school district. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. Means were calculated to determine the central tendency and standard deviations were calculated to determine the dispersion of the data. The responses to the survey instrument were analyzed using MS Excel and SPSS version-19 statistical software. The .05 level of significance was used for all statistical analyses.
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Research Question 2: Is there a relationship between Individual attitudes toward innovation and organizational attitudes toward innovation?
Composite mean scores and standard deviations for the superintendents’ perception of individual and organizational innovativeness were calculated for each respondent. A separate Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (Pearson’s r) for individual innovativeness and organizational innovativeness was also calculated to determine if a relationship exists between individual attitudes toward innovation and organizational attitudes toward innovation.
Research Question 3: Are differences in perceptions of South Carolina school district superintendents regarding innovations related to organizational variables including district enrollment, poverty levels and ESEA grade?
One way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were computed to determine if there are differences in the perceptions of South Carolina public school superintendents regarding individual and organizational innovativeness related to district enrollment and poverty level. ANOVAs were used to test for differences because both enrollment and poverty level were divided into three groups. An unpaired t test was computed to determine if there were differences based on ESEA grades. A t test was used to test for difference because ESEA grades were divided into only two groups.
Research Question 4: Are differences in perceptions of South Carolina school district superintendents regarding innovation related to demographic factors including age, sex, and experience?
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Unpaired t tests were computed to determine if there are differences in the perceptions of South Carolina public school superintendents regarding individual and organizational innovativeness related to age, sex, and experience. T tests were used to test for differences because age, sex, and years of experience were all divided into two
groups.
Validity of Data Collection
The 2012 South Carolina District Data and Poverty Index files were used to gather demographic data. An online survey was sent to all South Carolina public school district superintendents to determine their self-reported perceptions regarding individual and organizational innovativeness.
The responses given by the public school superintendents to items 6-25 were used to determine an II score and adopter category. Scoring was calculated using a three step process. In step one the scores for items 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, 20, 22, and 25 were added. In step two the scores for items 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, and 24 were added. In step 3 the following formula: (II = 42 + total score for Step 2 - total score for Step 1) was completed to determine final score and category. Scores above 80 are classified as Innovators. Scores between 69 and 80 are classified as Early Adopters. Scores between 57 and 68 are classified as Early Majority. Scores between 46 and 56 are classified as Late Majority. Scores below 46 are classified as Laggards/Traditionalists. In general people who score above 68 and considered highly innovative, and people who score below 64 are considered low in innovativeness (Hurt, Joseph, & Cook, C. D., 1977).
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The responses given by the public school superintendents to items 26-50 were used to determine an OI score and adopter category. In step one the scores for the
following items: 26, 28, 31, 33, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 47, and 48 were added. In step two the scores for the following items: 27, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41, 44, 45, 46, 49, and 50 were added. In step three the following formula: (OI = 66 + total from Step 2 - total from step 1) was completed to determine the final OI score and category. Scores above 110 indicate the organization are classified as innovative. Scores between 91 and 110 indicated the organization as an early adopter. Scores between 71 and 90 indicated the organization was in the early majority. Scores between 50 and 70 indicated the
organization was in the late majority. Scores below 50 indicated the organization was classified as a laggard or traditional. Generally, organizations which score above 90 are high in innovativeness. Those scoring below 50 are low in innovativeness. Those scoring between 50 and 90 are moderate in innovativeness (Hurt & Teigen, 1977).
Tukey’s Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) post-hoc test followed all ANOVAs (Research Question 3) to determine which groups differ significantly from others. Tukey’s HSD is used to clarify which groups among the sample in specific have significant differences and tests all pairwise differences while controlling the probability
of making one or more Type I errors. The .05 level of significance was used for all
statistical analyses utilized in this study.
Summary
This chapter reviewed the research methodology utilized for this study. A description of the research design, procedures for participant selection, instrumentation,
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data collection and data analysis procedures were described. The following chapter will present the findings of the data analysis and the related statistical tables.
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CHAPTER FOUR