THE DESIGN AND VALIDATION OF A LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM PROTOTYPE FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN
THE DESIGN AND VALIDATION OF A LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM PROTOTYPE FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN
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Date
1995
Authors
Williams, Martha W.
Advisor
Davidson, Neil A.
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Abstract
The study designed and validated a leadership
training program prototype for African American women
by examining role modeling and self-efficacy
constructs using the direct instruction model. This
study was the first to engage federal senior executive
service (SES) African American women members in
examining leadership skills and competencies. These
women also assessed the intrinsic and extrinsic value
of fourteen managerial behavior skills.
A modified educational research and development
methodology consisting of three phases outlined by
Borg and Gall (1989) was used. Phase One included two
major activities: (a) needs assessment and (b) design
of the prototype workshop. As part of the needs
assessment process, a survey-questionnaire was
developed which integrated competencies from two
studies in the literature. Those results were used to: (a) determine the prototype workshop topic, and
(b) examine the fourteen managerial behavior skills.
Fifty-four African American women in the SES
completed the needs assessment survey-questionnaire
and three of them served as project role models. The
project role models were interviewed during a videotaped
focus-group session. The prototype workshop, a
day-long session on "planning and organizing 11 based on
the direct instruction model, was also designed under
this phase. A preliminary field-test of the prototype
workshop was conducted under Phase Two.
The revised prototype workshop was subjected to
a ma in field-test under Phase Three, Twenty-four
African American women at the GS-7 through GS-13 grade
levels employed in a federal executive branch agency
participated in the main field-test. An independent
observer served throughout the study, but was not a
participant.
A variety of measurements were used to gather
data: needs assessment survey-questionnaire; project
role model focus-group interview session; pretest-posttest;
prototype workshop evaluation form;
interview-questionnaire; an independent observer's
evaluation-questionnaire and clinical notes; and post-workshop
assignment. The one-group, pretest-posttest experimental design was employed because no studies
existed which examined African American women's
leadership training using the direct instruction
model. It was therefore hypothesized that
distribution of scores on the pretest and posttest
measuring "planning and organizing" would differ in
their mean at the p<.05 level. A Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs
test was conducted.
Findings show that the model of African American
women's leadership as defined by the cluster sampling
group embraced transformational leadership attributes.
Consistent with the literature was the perception by
the project role models that having fewer African
American women role models in the workplace affects
their leadership development. The needs assessment
participants rated the fourteen managerial behavior
skills in terms of their level of intrinsic and
extrinsic value. "Dealing with racism" held the
highest level of intrinsic value. But, unlike other
studies, the skill "dealing with sexism" held the
lowest level of intrinsic value and was rated the
least important managerial behavior skill for
leadership development. The skill "problem-solving"
held high extrinsic value and "supporting" held low
extrinsic value. "Planning and organizing" was rated
the most important skill for leadership development while "dealing with sexism" was rated the least
important. Finally, scores on the post test were
higher than scores on the pretest. The Wilcoxon
Matched-Pairs test results show that pretest-posttest
mean scores differed at the p<.05 level. The
hypothesis was retained, suggesting usefulness of the
direct instruction model for developing the prototype
workshop.