The Technological Imperative in Educational Organizations: An Investigation of Structural and Personnel Factors Associated with the Flexibility of Instructional Technology in Public Elementary Schools
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Date
1978-12
Authors
Balderson, James Henry
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This study of public elementary school organizations explored
relationships among properties of three major variables: technology,
structure and personnel. The relationships were examined (a) in the
light of Charles Perrow's theoretical formulation of the
"technological imperative" which states that the nature of an
organization's technology determines the nature of its organizational
structure and (b) in the light of the author's notion that the
educational attitudes of organizational personnel were likely to
affect the technology and structure of educational organizations.
The general research problem was stated as follows: Are
public elementary school organizations characterized by systematic variation in relationships among properties of personnel attitudes,
technology and structure?
Four research questions were derived from the study's
theoretical framework:
1. Is there evidence that the technological imperative
operates in educational organizations? This question was addressed
by an examination of (1.1) relationships of instructional flexibility
(a measure of technological routineness) with the following structural
characteristics: (a) bureaucratization of teacher behavior,
(b) influence over school-wide matters, and (c) influence over
classroom matters; and (1.2) the effects of control variables on the
hypothesized negative relationship between instructional flexibility
and bureaucratization of teacher behavior.
2. What weights may be assigned to characteristics of
supervisory and instructional personnel regarding their association ,
if any, with instructional flexibility and properties of organizational
structure? This question was addressed by an examination of (2.1)
relationships of the educational attitudes of principals and staffs
with instructional flexibility and (2.2) bureaucratization of teacher
behavior and (2.3) the powers of two models to describe causal
relationships among these variables.
3. What few variables compared with instructional flexibility
best predict bureaucratization of teacher behavior?
4. What few variables compared with bureaucratization of
teacher behavior best predict instructional flexibility?
Data was collected by a questionnaire survey of 41 elementary
schools in a large urban western Canadian school district.
Computerized multivariate statistical techniques, including path
analysis, were used to examine the data.
Description
274 pages