Understanding the Illinois community college faculty attitude of change: commitment, involvement, and readiness

Trzaska, Kenneth

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/72762 Copy

Description

Title

Understanding the Illinois community college faculty attitude of change: commitment, involvement, and readiness

Author(s)

Trzaska, Kenneth

Issue Date

2015-01-21

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Li, Jessica

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

• Li, Jessica
• Span, Christopher M.

Committee Member(s)

• Kuchinke, Peter
• Hackmann, Donald G.
• Cheema, Jehanzeb

Department of Study

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Discipline

Ed Organization and Leadership

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ed.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Faculty
• Community colleges
• Change Readiness
• Change
• Faculty Attitude
• Commitment

Abstract

Changes affecting community colleges are becoming more difficult because of fewer available resources and because the pace of change is accelerating in the external environment. These realities mean that community colleges are now at a crossroads where managing the change process has become more important, more complicated, and involving. Faculty is perhaps the most pivotal employee group in guaranteeing that the change process proceeds smoothly. The purpose of this study was to identify attitudes of community college faculty toward readiness to change through insight into whether their levels of organizational commitment and job involvement function as predictors of their readiness to change. A survey research method was used and produced responses from 729 full-time Illinois community college faculty. Results indicate no significant correlation between overall commitment and readiness to change. Affective and continuance commitment levels showed positive correlations, while normative commitment levels were negatively correlated. In short, overall commitment was of lesser value in predicting faculty readiness to change than were the discrete commitment categories. The positive connection between job involvement and readiness to change was a strong indicator that the more involved faculty were in their work, the more likely they were to be open to change. Two control variables, gender and tenure, also emerged as important predictors of readiness to change. Of particular interest is the relationship between gender and readiness to change. These data indicated that female faculty tend to have a higher degree of readiness to change than male faculty. Tenure also showed a moderate yet negative relationship to readiness to change. Additional findings indicated that as both affective commitment levels and normative commitment levels increased, readiness to change increased, and as job involvement increases, readiness to change also increased. Job involvement also showed a positive yet moderate correlation to overall commitment. This study contributes to the literature on community college change and policy by increasing awareness about the attitudes toward change that are held by full-time faculty.

Graduation Semester

2014-12

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/72762

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2014 Kenneth Trzaska

Owning Collections