Kingdon, Lindblom, and Lovell: Assessing three models of the public policymaking process (John W. Kingdon, Charles Lindblom, Cheryl D. Lovell)

No side-by-side, multi-model, fifty-state quantitative assessment exists in the study of higher education public policy to determine which model or elements of models accurately reflect the policymaking process. This dissertation was an effort to advance the knowledge of the higher education public policymaking process by assessing three models of the policy-making process (Kingdon's Multiple Streams or Revised Garbage Can, Lindblom's Bounded Rationality or Incrementalism, and Lovell's Three-Tier Taxonomy) across three major policy issue areas (affordability, access, accountability) using State Higher Education Executive Officers' and Legislative Education Committee Chairpersons' perceptions as reported through responses to a survey addressing legislation since 1996. Data collected from the surveys were used to calculate mean scores. Data were examined through analysis of variances (ANOVA) as well as paired samples t-tests procedures.; This dissertation examined four primary research questions: (1) Which model was perceived as accurately depicting how policymakers produced higher education public policy? (2) Which model was perceived as accurate along major policy issue areas? (3) Which model was perceived as accurate along lines of regional higher education? (4) Which model was perceived as accurate along lines of systems of higher education governance? Kingdon's and Lovell's models were both perceived as accurate across all four research questions while Lindblom's model was perceived as accurate only along one regional compact and one system of governance. In the process of answering the research questions and assessing the individual elements of each of the three models, this study presented a hybrid model integrating all three elements of Lovell's model, three of the four elements of Kingdon's model and two of the elements of Lindblom's model.; The hybrid model suggests that higher education public policymaking is a political process of stages. This political process includes the processes of problem identification and of solutions (policy proposals) leading to selection of a preferred policy. This political process likewise demands stakeholder inclusion with value discussions weaving throughout. Finally, it describes the policymakers' process of seeking to empower policy implementers. While it still requires testing, this hybrid model gives researchers an additional tool for modeling and analyzing higher education policymaking.