| This study was undertaken to look at a particular structured change effort, the implementation of continuous quality improvement (CQI) at an institution of higher education, and to determine the influences of that effort as perceived by individuals who took part in the change effort. The general research question for this study was: What have been the influences of the continuous quality improvement training effort at the Metropolitan Community Colleges as perceived by employees who participated in the training? Using an embedded case study design, the study addressed this purpose by seeking information from a purposeful sample of individuals who participated in the training sessions that constituted the formal beginnings of the change effort. Interviews with these 26 individuals focused on their perceptions of influences on their individual thinking and practice, and on the observed practice of others, that took place as a result of the training. Institutional documents were reviewed to confirm interview findings.;The study found that the CQI concepts of continuous improvement; data-driven decision-making; inclusion, collaboration, and empowerment; and teams and teamwork had the most influence on study participants' thinking and practice, on the observed practice of others, and on general observations of the organization. The training influences were found to be facilitated by predisposing factors, association and integration with other concepts, application and effectiveness of the model, leadership, social support, and expectation for use. Barriers to the influence of the training were found to be lack of leadership consistency, limited use of teams, troublesome language, lack of overt ties to assessment, limited empowerment, lack of faculty acceptance, and need for continued training. The training itself was found to have had attributes that served as both facilitators and barriers to training influence.;The study concluded that leadership and social support played key roles in the change effort. Participant predisposition also played a major role on the extent to which the innovation was accepted. Honoring the culture of higher education and translating the innovation and its language to fit with the institutional context were also seen as important in the acceptance of the innovation. Developing connections between change efforts was seen to validate the individual efforts, create synergy, and provide opportunities for greater participation. Finally, it was concluded that although institutional transformation is difficult to identify given the complexity of institutions of higher education, collection of evidence by individual institutions undertaking change efforts is essential to understanding change in the academy. |
