Higher education system governance: an exploratory study of presidential decision making in the kentucky community and technical college system

Research Questions

The purpose of this exploratory study was to explore presidential decision making in KCTCS by examining the location of decision making and how presidential decision making is shared between the KCTCS president and college presidents for academic, administrative, and personnel decision areas.

Two primary research questions guide this exploratory study:

1. 
   What is the location of decision making in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System for specified academic, administrative, and personnel decisions?
   
2. 
   How do the KCTCS president and college presidents in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System share academic, administrative, and personnel decisions for the system and colleges?
   

Additional questions helped guide the study and aided in exploring presidential decision making in KCTCS. These questions attend to the particular contextual and situational factors relevant to presidential decision making based on the review of literature.

3. 
   How do the state economic, political, or social contexts influence academic, administrative, and personnel decision making within the community college system?
   
4. 
   What roles do the KCTCS Board of Regents and college boards of directors play in system-level and college-level decision making?
   

Research Paradigm

Philosophical paradigms influence the research process and need to be identified (Creswell, 2009). Creswell views paradigms as a general orientation about the world and about the research process that the researcher holds. Two philosophical paradigms – pragmatism and constructivism – frame this exploratory study of presidential decision making in KCTCS.

Pragmatism concerns itself with actions, situations, and consequences and is not associated with a particular philosophy or reality (Creswell, 2009). For this reason, pragmatism embraces both quantitative and qualitative methods and pragmatic researchers are free to choose the methods, techniques and procedures to best understand the central subject of the study. Though, with the freedom of using both quantitative and qualitative methods, researchers need to provide a rationale for the selection of both methods and be mindful of when and how the methods are mixed. Finally, pragmatism highlights that research takes place in the cultural, historical, political, and social contexts of society. As such, studies using both quantitative and qualitative methods may introduce or shift to another philosophical paradigm (Creswell, 2009).
Constructivism assumes that people seek understanding of the world in which they live and work (Creswell, 2009). Rather than starting with a theory, the goal of research is to inductively develop a theory or pattern of meaning. For this reason, the researcher plays an active role in interpreting the meanings and perceptions ascribed by the population. By playing an active role, constructivist researchers recognize how their
own backgrounds shape their interpretation of data acquired from the field. Moreover, according to Creswell, the meanings and perceptions ascribed by the population are usually negotiated socially and historically. As philosophical paradigms, both pragmatism and constructivism attune themselves with the particular contexts surrounding the central subject of the study and frame this exploratory study of presidential decision making in KCTCS.