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

Participant Solicitation and Informed Consent

Participation was solicited via an email to the system email account for the system president and each of the college presidents requesting their participation in the study.

The email explained the purpose of the study and asked them to complete and submit an electronic consent form if they were willing to participant in all or part of the study. The consent form asked them to identify whether they consent to participate in only phase one, only phase two, or both phase one and phase two of the study. Participants were instructed to input their electronic signature, save the file, and then reply to the solicitation email by attaching the completed consent form. The solicitation email and consent form are included in the appendices.
The initial solicitation email was sent to the system president and college presidents on in early March 2016 with a specified reply date. A reminder email with the same content and requests was sent one day prior to the specified reply date. Following the reminder email, four participants had replied. Those not replying by the specified reply date received a second reminder email with the same content and request.
Following the second reminder email, two additional participants had replied for a total of six participants.
In early March 2016, the researcher contacted by phone the executive assistants for the participants that had not yet replied by the specified reply date. The researcher explained the purpose of the call and asked for assistance in obtaining a response. In some cases, the researcher sent the solicitation email to the executive assistants at their request. A third reminder email was sent in the middle of March 2016 to participants that had not yet replied.
During participant solicitation, the researcher asked participating presidents to help her by encouraging their colleagues to participate in the study. This resulted in one additional survey participant and one additional interview participant. Of the 17 possible participants for this study, 6 participants consented to participate in phase one of the study, which represents a response rate of 35% for the survey. Additionally, 3 participants consented to participate in phase two of the study. Only those willing to participate received further communication about the study. All participants consenting to participate did participate.