Vol 6 No 1 - June 2014

International Journal
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Learning, Teaching
And
Educational Research
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Vol.6 No.1

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VOLUME 6 NUMBER 1 June 2014
Table of Contents
Using Social Network Analysis to Examine Leadership Capacity within a Central Office Administrative Team ..1
Robert M. Hill, Ed.D. and Barbara N. Martin, Ed.D.
Implementation of a Teaching and Learning Model: Institutional, Programme and Discipline level at a University
of Technology in South Africa. ........................................................................................................................................... 20
Dr Pauline Machika
Effects of Bioethics Integration on the Critical Thinking and Decision-Making Skills of High School Students.....32
Sally B. Gutierez and Rosanelia T.Yangco
Effects of Tissue Properties on OJT for Japanese Elementary School Teachers ........................................................... 43
Masaaki Murakami
Revising the Imaginative Capability and Creative Capability Scales: Testing the Relationship between
Imagination and Creativity among Agriculture Students............................................................................................... 57
Yuling Hsu, Li-Pei Peng, Jiun-Hao Wang and Chaoyun Liang
The Relationship between Upper Intermediate EFL Learners’ Critical Thinking and Their Listening
Comprehension Ability........................................................................................................................................................ 71
Samane Naderi and Hamid Ashraf
Buying Our Lives with a Riddle:1 Adaptation as the “Female-Other” Perspective .................................................... 81
Lekan Balogun

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© 2014 The authors and IJLTER.ORG. All rights reserved.
International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research
Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1-19, June 2014
Using Social Network Analysis to Examine
Leadership Capacity within a
Central Office Administrative Team
Robert M. Hill, Ed.D.
Senior Analyst & Instructional Developer
U.S. Army Information Operations Proponent Office
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, USA
Barbara N. Martin, Ed.D.
Professor of Educational Leadership
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, Missouri, USA
Abstract. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways in which
Social Network Analysis (SNA) could inform leadership capacity within
a small, Midwestern school district. Four findings were identified. The
first was that hierarchical or formal structures continue to hold sway
within educational institutions. The second was that ―birds of a feather‖
or people of common interest or equivalent status within the hierarchy
do indeed flock together. The third was that collaboration, trust, and
transparency are inter-dependent and undergird capacity. The fourth
was that social networks are the organization, making SNA an essential
diagnostic and decision-making tool. The findings led to a number of
implications for practice, which were framed by Information Age
imperatives arising from the literature.
Keywords: Leadership; Social Network Analysis; Leadership Capacity;
Social Networks; Educational Leadership
1. Introduction
Outdated organizational models and simplistic conceptions of leadership limit
the ability of school leaders to tackle the thorny issues they face on a daily basis
in the 21st Century (Bolman & Deal, 2003; Yukl, 2012). Theories of leadership
suggest that new conceptions are essential if these problems are to be solved
(Martin, 2007). These new conceptions must account for more collaborative and
networked ways of making sense of things (Drath, 2003; Kelly, 2003). This study,
framed by interrelated theories, among them constructivist leadership,
leadership capacity, and social networks, sought to employ an Information-Age
tool—social network analysis—to examine leadership and ways to expand its
capacity within the administrative team of a district central office. The following

2
research questions guided this inquiry: 1) What does social network analysis
(SNA)—to be referred to as measures of connectedness—reveal about the nature
of leadership capacity within the administrative team of a district central office?
2) How does leadership capacity—as measured by Lambert‘s Leadership
Capacity School Survey—inform the outcomes of the SNA and vice versa? 3)
How do the SNA results affect attitudes of the district‘s senior leadership
concerning ways of working, organizing, interacting, and enhancing leadership
capacity within the district? 4) How do the SNA results affect attitudes of the
district‘s senior leadership with regard to solving its most intractable problems?
2. Conceptual Underpinnings of the Study
Embedded in the discussion of the evolution of organizational and leadership
theories were complexity theory and social network and small world theories,
which expanded the possibilities for understanding leadership capacity,
particularly through the use of Social Network Analysis or SNA (Andriani &
Passiante, 2004; Barabási, 2002; Bar-Yam, 2004; Bolman & Deal, 2003; Cilliers,
2004; Cross & Parker, 2004; Lambert, 2002, 2003; Morgan, 1997; Wasserman &
Faust, 1994; Watts, 2003).
2.1 Organizational and leadership theories
Theories of organizations and of leadership tend to follow the prevailing
philosophical orientation of both society and the researchers (Yukl, 2012). Thus,
in the early years of analysis, organizations were viewed through a positivist
lens as fixed entities that could be dissected and studied empirically to
determine what made them tick. From this epistemological framework arose the
first theories of organization and leadership, namely structuralism and scientific
management (Foster, 1986). As positivist and structuralist views yielded to
constructivist, post-structuralist and post-modernist views on the nature of
reality and truth, theories of organizations and the leadership needed to govern
them have become more complex (Bensimon, Neumann, & Birnbaum, 1989).
Morgan (1997) argued that theory is, at its root, a metaphor through which
humans understand the world about them. More complex theories of
organizations and leadership, which are needed to deal with both vexing
problems and intriguing possibilities, are made possible only when ways of
seeing are complicated, either within themselves or in combination (Bolman &
Deal, 2003).
2.2 Constructivist leadership theory
As its name implies, constructivist leadership theory emanates from a
phenomenological worldview in which meaning arises–or is constructed–
through what Wilson (2002) termed intersubjective—or shared—experience.
―Whatever meaning we create has its roots in human actions, and the totality of
social artifacts and cultural objects is grounded in human activity‖ (¶ 14).
Constructivist theory views leadership as a dimension of the entire organization
―beyond person and role and embedded in the patterns of relationships we will
refer to as ‗reciprocal processes‘‖ (Lambert, 2002, p. 42). These reciprocal

3
processes subsequently ―enable participants in an educational community to
construct meanings that lead toward a shared purpose of schooling‖ (p. 42).
Leadership is strongly tied to learning and ―addresses the need for sensemaking,
for coherence, and for seeing educational communities as growth-producing
entities‖ (p. 35).
2.3 Leadership capacity
Within the context of education, Lambert (2003) posited that ―real communities
ask more of us than merely to gather together; they also assume a focus on
shared purpose, mutual regard, and caring, and an insistence on integrity and
truthfulness‖ (p. 4). From this conviction arises the notion of leadership capacity,
which Lambert (2005) defined as ―broad-based, skillful participation in the work
of leadership that leads to lasting school improvement.‖ Capacity is therefore
framed as the intersection of degree of participation and degree of skill, with low
capacity schools scoring low in both dimensions and high capacity schools
scoring high in both.
While broad-based and skillful participation characterizes a high-capacity
organization and lessens the need for command-and-control leadership, formal
leaders still play a critical role in fostering and sustaining capacity (Lambert,
2003). Most especially, they facilitate the creation of a shared vision and the
conversations necessary to grow capacity.
2.4 Complexity theory
Viewed another way, capacity is complexity or the ability to increase
connections and reciprocal relationships, an essential tenet of constructivist
leadership (Lambert, 2002). Bar-Yam (2004) noted that a hierarchical
organization can be complex but only as complex as the person in charge. In an
ambiguous and indeterminate world, the capacity of one individual becomes
insufficient to deal with the challenges confronting human collectives. ―Complex
challenges make it virtually impossible for an individual leader to accomplish
the work of leadership, and individual leadership therefore reaches a distinct
limit in the face of complex challenges‖ (Drath, 2003, p. 5).
The law of requisite variety posits that a complex environment demands a
complex organism, which is comprised of not just a single brain but many brains
(Andriani & Passiante, 2004; Bar-Yam, 2004, Kelly, 2003; McKelvey, 2004;
Morgan, 1997), what McKelvey (2004) terms ―distributed intelligence‖ (p. 41)
and Kelly terms ―hive mind‖ (Chap. 2, Asymmetrical invisible hands, ¶ 6). The
value of complexity theory is that it provides a means to discover underlying
order within highly diffuse and diverse organizations.
2.5 Network and small world theories
Capacity speaks to the ability to harness communities to achieve common
purpose (Lambert, 2005). Yet anyone who exists within such communities
knows that they are complex hives of social interaction that often resist attempts
to control and synchronize them (Drath, 2003). To build capacity, Lambert (2003)
advocated creating structures for broad-based participation. She stated that ―full

4
participation is first and foremost a function of design‖ (p. 18), which overlays a
structuralist framework onto a post-structuralist vision of leadership. This
inherent dichotomy is precisely the message that emerges from social network
theory. Structure and chaos, complexity and simplicity, robustness and fragility
are not polar opposites or mutually exclusive; they coexist in complex systems
(Barabási, 2002; Bar-Yam, 2004; Watts, 2003).
What network and small world theories suggest is that capacity is both a
function of formal design and structure (think hierarchical organizations) and
informal networks that exist or co-exist within the formal structure but, until
recently, have not been understood in a systematic way. According to Krebs
(1996), organizational charts are prescriptive when it comes to work processes
and information flow; as such, they fail to capture a ―complex web of informal
interactions‖ that exists on a subterranean level within the formal structure (p.
397). Illuminating these informal interactions through Social Network Analysis
(SNA) becomes essential ―in order to identify not only clear breakdowns in
cooperation and sharing but also opportunities to strengthen viable but
imperfect elements of the ‗collaborative fabric‘‖ (p. 397).
2.6 Social network analysis
The means to illuminate these webs of interactions is made possible through
social network analysis (SNA). Social network analysis blends quantitative and
qualitative methods to examine an organization in terms of its ―patterns or
regularities in relationships among interacting units,‖ most especially people
(Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Wasserman and Faust noted several characteristics
fundamental to SNA. First, actors and actions are considered interdependent,
rather than as autonomous. Second, ties exist among these actors, which are
channels for the transfer of material and non-material resources. Third, the
network structure that exists between and among actors provides both
opportunities for and constraints on individual action. Fourth, SNA models
network structure that is viewed as lasting patterns of relationships among
actors (lasting does not mean unchanging; structures will change but there will
always be a structure of relationships that exists among actors).
Social network analysis offers a unique means to explore informal (and often
invisible) networks within organizations, which are increasingly recognized as
critical to the way organizations really function and optimize performance
(Cross & Parker, 2004). For the purposes of this study, social network analysis
was viewed as a way to explore complexity and capacity-building features that
otherwise would be missed in an educational organization.
3. Methodology
3.1 Rationale for use of case study design
Social network analysis (SNA), as an evaluative approach to visualizing and
examining organizations, has broad applicability. Yet each SNA is unique to the
organization it maps or x-rays, making SNA case-dependent. For this reason, a
case-study approach was employed in this study. Merriam (1998) concluded that

5
the ―single most defining characteristic of case study research lies in delimiting
the object of the study, the case‖ (p. 27).
The researchers initially wrestled with whether this study was more
appropriately a phenomenological one because social interaction can be viewed
as an essential quality of all organizations, and phenomenological studies seek to
explore the essence of shared experience (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2003). But this
study does not so much seek to describe and bracket the essence of social-ness
within a central office administrative team as it does to map and analyze its
manifestation in this specific case.
3.2 Participants
For this study, the unit of analysis was a medium-sized public school district
located in the Midwest. This district was chosen purposefully. The participants
were the personnel assigned to this school district‘s administrative team (all
central office personnel plus school principals). The sample of the study was
every person that comprised this team, minus those who opted out (N=15).
3.3 Instrumentation
Several data collection instruments were used in this study. These included: (a)
individual and small group interviews; (b) a hybrid subject-informant survey,
the SNA survey; and (c) Lambert‘s (2003) Leadership Capacity School Survey
(LCSS).
Several semi-structured interviews (Merriam, 1998) were employed. The first
was an interview with the superintendent. The second was an electronically-
delivered interview with the remaining senior leaders, comprised of the deputy
and assistant superintendent, and building principals. The third was a group
interview with this entire group.
Social network analytic (SNA) tools rely on data sets of binary social
interactions. These are captured through a questionnaire that required all
participants to identify specific other actors with whom they have the kinds of
interactions under scrutiny. Sample questions included: (a) To whom do you
typically turn for help understanding and implementing the district‘s vision and
mission? (b) With whom do you typically collaborate to align what the district
does each day with this vision? (c) To whom do you typically turn for fresh
ideas and innovation?
Lambert‘s Leadership Capacity School Survey (LCSS) is a subject survey that was
modified to make it appropriate to a district administrative team. Pierce (2007)
found the LCSS to be highly reliable, especially when used for self-assessment
and collaborative reflection.
3.4 Data Analysis
The researchers began by mining the transcript of the interview with the
superintendent, using data codes not only to help shape the SNA survey but also
to detect phrases and concepts that centered on leadership capacity. This was

6
followed by analysis of the data collected from the SNA survey and LCSS. The
researchers primarily focused on assembling the data in such a way that it led to
productive and meaningful conversations during the group interview. Later, the
researchers returned to the survey data to clarify insights that emerged from the
group interview discussion.
4. Presentation and Analysis of Data
The results of the SNA survey were entered into the Organizational Risk
Analysis (ORA) software and yielded a series of network maps (using the
software‘s embedded visualization feature) that were employed to facilitate and
spur discussion among the district‘s senior leaders. These maps were
anonymized in order to protect the identities of the participants; thus, no explicit
correlation was made between the code and the person or specific position it
represents. However, based on the literature review and insight that within
networks birds of a feather flock together (Krebs & Holley, 2006, p. 4), the
researchers differentiated the codes into three subgroups. Those nodes
representing Central Office Administrators (superintendent, deputy
superintendent, and two assistant superintendents) were designated with a
COA code. Those nodes representing Central Office Supporting Staff
(administrative assistants) were coded as COSS. Finally, those nodes
representing Building Administrators were coded as BA.
The ORA software application is freeware available from the Center for
Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS), a center
within the Institute for Software Research, School of Computer Science, Carnegie
Mellon University. As the User‘s Guide states, ―Networks are ubiquitous.
Everyone and everything is constrained and enabled by the networks in which
they are embedded‖ and everyone typically belongs to multiple networks, a fact
for which ORA accounts (Carley, Columbus, DeReno, Reminga, & Moon, 2008,
p. 10). The ORA application allows for robust and intricate network analysis far
beyond the scope of this study but available to support expanded SNA research
within the educational domain.
To recap the process involved, participants were given a set of questions that
asked them to identify other members of the staff with whom they interacted in
specific situations. A list of all members of the network was included and
participants annotated those boxes beside the names that applied. For example,
when asked who he considers his friends, Actor A might select Actors C, F, G
and H. A spreadsheet was then created for each question, compiling all such
actor-to-actor interactions, which looked like that in Figure 1. A ―1‖ in the box
indicates an interaction was identified, while a ―0‖ indicates no interaction was
identified.

7
Figure 1: Example of ORA data input. [Note: The yellow diagonal highlights that an
actor cannot interact with him or herself.]
Network visualizations or maps were then created for each question and other
visualizations created to examine the correlation with Lambert‘s (2003)
Leadership Capacity School Survey, as well as to reveal metrics unique to
network analysis, such as Closeness Centrality. In all, the researchers created 22
such maps. Three examples will be examined in this paper in order to
demonstrate how ORA visually displays data.
In the sample figures that follow, a consistent color coding is employed. Central
Office Administrators (COA), consisting of the superintendent, deputy, and
assistant superintendents are represented by blue dots. Building Administrators
(BA), consisting of the school principals, are represented by green dots. Finally,
the Central Office Supporting Staff (COSS), consisting of administrative
assistants, is represented by red dots.
For the first set of maps in the study, the title of each figure is comprised of a
keyword identifier for that network based on the core attribute being examined.
For example, Figure 2 is titled Vision network. Other networks examined such
attributes as collaboration, trust, unvarnished truth, hope, courage and
friendship.

8
To whom do you typically turn for help understanding and implementing the
district’s vision and mission?
Figure 2: Vision network depicting social interactions related to vision and mission.
[Note: COA are represented by blue dots; BA by green dots; COSS by red dots.
Arrows reveal the direction of interaction.]
Figure 2 depicts interactions related to understanding and implementing the
district‗s vision and mission. COA personnel turned primarily to each other,
although in some instances COA also turned to BA. BA turned primarily to COA
but also each other. Of note, COSS turned exclusively to COA. Some turned only
to a single COA, while others turned to multiple COA. There were no isolated
nodes (isolates) within this network.
A stated intention of the study was to examine ways in which SNA might
influence or foster the expansion of leadership capacity. Thus, visualizing the
relationship between the results of the SNA survey and Lambert‗s (2003)
Leadership Capacity School Survey was a means to foster discussion and
discovery about how social networks and capacity are inter-related. Figure 3
reveals the ORA output showing one possible means to relate the two. The first
aspect of the visualization to note is that it represents a combination of the
Vision, Collaboration, and Innovations networks which ORA has the capability
to perform. These three networks were chosen because each correlates to a
construct within the LCSS (vision = focus on vision; innovation = reflection and
innovation; and collaboration = shared governance). This composite network,
therefore, reveals connections that might shape leadership capacity. Because of
this fact, the researchers employed it as the default network for all subsequent
visualizations.

9
The second aspect of this visualization to note is that each node or actor has been
color coded to reveal his or her score on the LCSS. The LCSS seeks to measure
leadership capacity within an organization. Using a scale of 1 to 5, where 1
represents ―We do not do this at our organization,‖ 2 represents ―We are starting
to move in this direction,‖ 3 represents ―We are making good progress,‖ 4
represents ―We have this condition well established,‖ and 5 represents ―We are
refining our practice in this area,‖ respondents scored four constructs: Intense
Focus on Vision, Reflection and Innovation, Shared Governance, and Monitors
and Responds to Staff Achievement.
Leadership Capacity School Survey (LCSS) Connectivity
Legend
Color LCSS Score
0-1.0
1.1-2.0
2.1-3.0
3.1-4.0
4.1-5.0
A score of 1 or 2 in the survey represents areas of greatest need, 3
and 4 represent strengths, and 5 represents exemplary work that
reflects high leadership capacity.
Figure 3: Relationship between Social Network Analysis of the combined Vision-
Collaboration-Innovation network and results of Lambert‟s Leadership Capacity
School Survey. [Note: This visualization kluges the Vision, Collaboration, and
Innovation networks, as these dimensions comprise three of the critical constructs
within Lambert„s (2003) LCSS.]
While network visualizations can reveal who is connected to whom, they cannot
always reveal with clarity the strength of those connections, or how central a
person is to the network, or how far one actor is from another (within the
typography of the network map). These quantitative details help to enrich
understanding of the network and inform decisions that might improve network
performance (Carley, Columbus, DeReno, Reminga, & Moon, 2008; Cross &
Parker, 2004; Krebs, 1996, 2008).
ORA has the capacity to calculate and visualize over 100 such measures (Carley,
Columbus, DeReno, Reminga, & Moon, 2008). These specific measures were
chosen in consultation with Mr. Jeff Reminga (personal communication, May 21,

10
2009) who also authored the boxed definition. Some of the more common
measures include Boundary Spanner, Clique Count, Betweenness Centrality and
Total Degree Centrality. Only one, Closeness Centrality (Figure 4), will be
presented here.
Closeness Centrality Finds nodes that can quickly
reach other nodes. Most
other nodes in the network
can be reached in a few links
from these nodes. Such
nodes can communicate on
average with the most other
nodes in the shortest
number of steps.
Figure 4: Closeness centrality. [Note: COA are represented by blue dots; BA by green
dots; COSS by red dots. The larger the node, the higher the closeness centrality and
the ability of that node to connect to the most other nodes fastest.]
Closeness Centrality assesses nodes based on their ―distance‖ to other nodes.
Nodes with higher closeness centrality are able to connect to other nodes in the
network through the fewest number of steps. In this case, COSS15 has the
highest closeness centrality, enabling it to link to more nodes in the network
faster (in the fewest steps) than any other node.
4.1 Integrating themes
From this data emerged a number of inter-related patterns and themes. The
researchers realized that these themes emerged not only from the expected
source of the interview transcripts; they also emerged from the Organizational
Risk Analyzer (ORA) network maps. Finally, they emerged from field
observations that occurred throughout the study. Each source of theme data
informed the other.
The most compelling of these themes arose from the ORA network
visualizations and the conversations that the district leadership had as they
collectively viewed each one. They included a consistent, yet seemingly

11
contradictory, pattern of fragmentation and isolation while simultaneously
exhibiting a pattern of flocking or cliquishness among sub-groups. These two
themes complemented four integrating themes that arose from all data sets.
These four integrating themes were framed in oppositional terms because they
emerged as much through their negative manifestation as their positive, much
like an x-ray can be revealing, if not more so, than the object it captures. These
themes included vision as opposed to managed programs; collaboration rather
than isolation and fragmentation; trust instead of suspicion and avoidance; and
transparency versus opaqueness and guardedness.
4.2 Analysis in relation to study questions
Because SNA is relatively new, the ways in which it can inform leadership
capacity have received little attention. This study sought to examine capacity
more descriptively and holistically as an organic dimension of school
communities, with particular focus on the district administrative team. Social
Network Analysis held the exploratory promise of unlocking leadership
capacity and served as a catalyst to answer the four posed research questions: 1)
What does SNA reveal about the nature of leadership capacity within the
administrative team of a district central office? 2) How does leadership capacity,
as measured by the LCSS, inform the outcomes of the SNA and vice versa? 3)
How do the SNA results affect attitudes of the district‘s senior leadership
concerning ways of working, organizing, interacting, and enhancing leadership
capacity within the district? 4) How do the SNA results affect attitudes of the
district‘s senior leadership with regard to solving its most intractable problems?
The SNA maps and data revealed that within the school district, leadership
capacity was inhibited. Issues of trust, willingness to collaborate, lack of
reciprocity, and isolation of both individuals and sub-groups resulted in a strong
tendency among sub-groups to operate within their own circles.
With regard to the relation between SNA and LCSS, the data revealed that
individuals to whom others turned on issues related to vision, collaboration, and
innovation often lacked confidence in the district‘s capacity for broad-based and
skillful leadership. The data also revealed that such confidence was greatest
among the senior-most sub-group, who from atop the organization assessed the
current state of capacity more optimistically than did the other sub-groups. The
support staff was half as confident as its bosses in the degree of capacity that
existed within the administrative team.
In terms of the way that the SNA affected attitudes of the district‗s senior
leadership concerning ways of working, organizing, interacting, and leading, the
data revealed a prevailing sentiment that current ways of doing business were
not all that ineffective and, in some cases, were favored. To a limited extent,
efforts were being undertaken to enhance capacity within the organization, and
there was broad recognition that more needed to be done to involve the COSS
sub-group.

12
Insufficient data were obtained to answer the final question with sufficiency and
confidence. While it was recognized that SNA offered a unique tool for
organizational analysis and discovery, there was no explicit connection made
between the SNA results and the ways these results could be leveraged to solve
the problems surfaced by the district‗s leadership as inordinately challenging.
5. Findings
Employing the insights just summarized, the researchers returned to the inter-
related theoretical underpinnings of the study, which included organizational
and leadership theories and their evolution, constructivist leadership and its
sub-set of leadership capacity, complexity theory, and network theory, and drew
out the findings that follow.
5.1 Finding 1—Hierarchical or formal structures continue to hold sway
Breaking free of old habits is difficult. The data revealed that while efforts such
as Professional Learning Communities were being undertaken to yield the
benefits of collaboration and shared leadership, nonetheless the default response
to most situations was to rely on existing structures and ways of working. Yukl
(2012) concluded that organizations continue to privilege hierarchical structures
and heroic leadership because they conform to the prevailing and unchallenged
worldview that leadership equals leader, a form of circular logic from which it is
difficult to break free.
A less polemical reason for viewing leadership heroically is the need for
simplicity. The human tendency is to systematize the complex world and to
―exaggerate the importance of leaders in order to explain events in a way that
fits [their] assumptions and implicit theories‖ (Yukl, 2012, p. 449).
The need for simplicity and rationality leads inexorably to the last and most
compelling reason organizations cling to outmoded visions of leadership: the
demand for accountability. The need for accountability carries with it the
onerous implication that the formal leader can touch everything and shape all
outcomes, which are tenuous and even dangerous assumptions to make.
Based on the data derived from this study, the school district implicitly
defaulted to its formal structure in which there were clear lines of demarcation
between the central office, the schools, and the supporting staff. It did so despite
explicit efforts, such as adoption of PLCs, designed to break down silos or
barriers between and among key sub-groups.
5.2 Finding 2—“Birds of a feather” do flock together
Repeatedly in the ORA network visualizations, there was a clear pattern of
individuals in similar roles, at similar levels within the organization, favoring
each other in their interactions. This sub-group cliquishness supported what
Krebs and Holley (2006) characterized as ―two simple, yet powerful driving
forces [within networks]: (a) Birds of a feather flock together; and (b) those close
by, form a tie‖ (p. 4).

13
In the extreme, according to Krebs and Holley (2006) such clustering is both bad
and good. On the negative side, there is little or no diversity within each cluster.
On the up side, ―the dense connections, and high degree of commonality forms
good work groups—clusters of people who can work together smoothly‖ (p. 5).
The school district capitalized on the benefits associated with formal teaming by
actively cultivating communities of practice and learning. At the same time, it
recognized that further work needed to be done to overcome fragmentation,
isolation, and cliquishness that were made more explicit through SNA.
5.3 Finding 3—Transparency, trust and collaboration are deeply inter-
dependent and underpin capacity
One study participant noted that in the physical world capacity is a measure of
volume. If the ability to achieve greater volume is impaired, then so too is
capacity. Transparency, trust, and collaboration all contribute to capacity and
were, to some degree, impaired within the district.
Lencioni (2002) cited lack of trust or an unwillingness to be vulnerable to others
as one of five dysfunctions of a team that can debilitate its ability to achieve
optimal performance. Seen another way, dysfunction, especially dysfunction
that can be remedied, shows a lack of skill, and skillfulness is essential to
leadership capacity-building (Lambert, 2003).
In order to enhance skillfulness, transparency is necessary; otherwise,
organizations run the risk that their collaborative efforts will seem superficial, as
was the perception within the district. The potential value of a tool like SNA is
its ability to make the inner workings of an organization more transparent and,
as a result, guide and shape those inner workings with greater precision (Cross
& Parker, 2004; Krebs & Holley, 2006). Still, even as SNA can create greater
transparency, it also depends on transparency. In this study, the names were
anonymized to protect the identities of those participating. In so doing, the full
power of the application was diminished. A lack of comfort being vulnerable
with each other meant that full transparency was not achieved. This condition,
in turn, meant that collaborations (connections) could not be assessed fully for
their strengths and weaknesses. Weak connections could not be strengthened;
bad connections could not be fixed; new and necessary connections could not be
created, etc.
It was noted earlier that capacity is complexity and vice versa. A fully-
networked organization is more complex than a hierarchical one (Bar-Yam, 2004;
Kelly, 2003); therefore it follows that deliberative efforts, informed by SNA, to
flatten the organization and expand, energize, and shape network ties will result
in expanded capacity. This ongoing process starts with trust—the willingness to
be vulnerable to others (Lencioni, 2002), which is a form of transparency—that in
turn leads to greater transparency, smarter, more informed decisions, and
enriched interactions and strengthened collaboration.

14
5.4 Finding 4—Social networks are the organization, making SNA an
essential diagnostic and decision-making tool
The data gathered during this study, especially through interview responses and
direct observation, made clear that the district‘s leadership team left many
potentially powerful social interactions to chance. It did so because such
interactions were largely invisible to them. According to Bar-Yam (2004),
complex entities are characterized by emergence, ―the relationship between the
details of a system and the larger view‖ (p. 27) and interdependence, the notion
that every part of a system is integrally connected to another. The tendency is to
see organizations by their complete outward manifestation, often captured by
their formal organization chart. Yet solving organizational problems typically
requires seeing them in terms of the complex interactions of their discrete parts.
Both views are necessary but it is the second one that is often overlooked (Cross
and Parker, 2004).
Another way of explaining emergence is ―where local interactions lead to global
patterns‖ (Krebs & Holley, 2006, p. 3-4). In other words, by understanding
discrete connections, and energizing them in intentional ways, leaders can guide
the patterns that emerge at the organizational or global level. ―Instead of
allowing networks to evolve without direction, successful individuals, groups
and organizations have found that it pays to actively manage [their] network‖
(p. 5).
Social Network Analysis (SNA), therefore, becomes an absolutely essential tool
for organizational health and performance, just as an x-ray is indispensible in
ensuring human health. SNA provides a diagnostic tool that allows leaders and
organizations to peer beyond the surface of their organization and make
decisions designed to make it healthier and smarter.
5.5 Heuristic arising from the findings
The data analysis and findings made possible an integrating heuristic, presented
in Figure 5. Collaboration, trust, and transparency create the environment in
which candid conversations and meaningful connections can occur. These
conversations and connections begin in the core of the network and expand
outward to the periphery. They are ongoing and smartly managed by all, but
especially by the formal leaders of the organization. Shared vision backgrounds
everything and serves to bind, coalesce, and focus these conversations and
connections across all levels, teams, sub-groups, and stakeholders. Capacity
expands as a result of deliberate, ongoing, focused conversations and
connections, within an open and encouraging environment, and shaped by
vision.

15
Figure 5: Leadership capacity integrating heuristic
6. Implications for Practice
Complex challenges confront educational leaders in the Information Age,
leading to the question: If the current global environment is indeed chaotic and
uncertain, if complexity underpins every system and process and if determinism
is no longer consistently operative, what are educational leaders to do? In reply,
five strategies, derived from the literature, addressed the need to rethink the
ways in which leadership is enacted. These five strategies offer a worthwhile
platform for redefining practice in the 21st Century.
6.1 Think more complexly
This study revealed that organizations tend to default to the status quo when it
comes to structures and leadership. Despite efforts to enact more democratic or
decentralized leadership, such as Professional Learning Communities,
organizations still find it difficult to break free of the hierarchical structures that
formally define them and discover that sweet spot on the continuum between
rigid hierarchies and leaderless networks (Brafman & Beckstrom, 2006).
Breaking free and finding this ―sweet spot‖ are essential in an age that is
increasingly inter-connected and flat.
Drath (2003) stated that the first step to dealing with complex problems may, at
first, seem counterintuitive: to create even more complex capacity. ―A complex
capacity to respond means something different from just a more complicated
process. It means a more varied, less predictable, more layered process capable
of greater subtlety‖ (p. 6). How might educational leaders create this complex
capacity? Cultivating acceptable patterns will invariably lead to a more

16
networked organizational structure, and leaders must be quick to embrace the
network structure and its benefits, even as they work to minimize its
shortcomings, such as dealing with accountability. What leaders today can ill
afford is to revert back to default structures that prevent transparency, mitigate
trust, and diminish collaboration.
6.2 Let go
Counter-intuitively, letting go is not about less work but more. It is not about
simply formulating programs and then decentralizing their implementation. Nor
is it a laissez-faire approach to leadership. It is about letting go of ego and power
trips, shedding inhibitions, and inviting broader participation in problem
solving and sensemaking. In terms of practice, letting go starts with a
compelling vision—a narrative that unifies every action and activity and enables
this sensemaking. It becomes the lens through which meaning arises in
acceptable forms. Creating such a vision is a difficult task but must be given the
time and resources needed to make it happen.
6.3 Expand capacity at all levels
Letting go cannot happen without the complementary action of expanding
capacity. One must let go in order to create the conditions by which capacity can
expand and by expanding capacity, one is able to let go more readily.
One Central Office Administrator in this study stated that if interactions were at
their highest level, no work would get done because people would be constantly
interacting and talking. Yet according to constructivist leadership, interactions
and conversations enable the construction of meaning and learning, whether
among students or among adults (Lambert, 2002). As was noted in the Findings,
interactions and conversations are the organization; they are its essential work
and business. The key to expanding capacity is to manage and focus the
conversations and shape the connections in deliberate and disciplined ways.
Social Network Analysis becomes a powerful and essential tool for managing
capacity-building activities.
6.4 Move toward profound simplicity
Weick (2008) argued that dealing with complexity requires persistent sense-
making: ―sensemaking is dynamic and requires continuous updating and
reaccomplishment. As a leader, don‗t let people languish in the feeling, ‗Now we
have it figured out.‘ They don‗t have it figured out‖ (Leadership when, ¶ 6, bullet
6). Dealing with the inexplicable is about talking as you go, in the form of stories
that describe what is being faced and how to deal with it. Profound simplicity
means allowing these stories to unfold.
Here again, SNA provides a tool to start meaningful and informed conversations
about how members of an organization habitually interact. Sensemaking and
discovery are both affected by who is contributing to the conversation. The more
perspectives that are included in the discovery process, the more transparent
and fully-faceted the arrived-at solutions will be. Seen another way, SNA can be
viewed as a profoundly simple way to view organizations. Through the

17
examination of simple nodes and lines (edges), organizations begin to tap into
and make sense of profoundly complex human dynamics.
6.5 Start small
Social network analysis offers a first step towards understanding and harnessing
invisible energy within an organization, energy that comes about as a result of
social interactions, large and small. By employing a tool like ORA, educational
leaders can begin to make these invisible force fields more explicit and align
them with the vision of the organization. In so doing, the skill with which the
work of leadership is accomplished is sharpened and broadened, expanding
capacity to such a degree that the complex challenges confronting educational
institutions can be met head on with greater hope of mastering them.
7. Conclusion
The challenges confronting humans today in all fields of endeavor are complex
in their nature. Educational institutions are faced with demands for improved
student achievement against a backdrop of reduced revenue streams, increased
diversity, mounting social challenges, changing demographics, and rising
teacher attrition. Faced with these challenges, along with the impact of
advancing technology and social media, new forms of leadership are becoming
imperative. Bar-Yam (2004) and Drath (2004) both noted that in order to survive
within complex environments, organisms must themselves become complex.
Kelly (2003) posited that the pure network was the most complex social
configuration possible, while Brafman and Beckstrom (2006) recognized that
fully-networked, leaderless organizations are more theoretical than practical.
Instead, organizations fall along a continuum between pure hierarchies and pure
networks. In the Information Age, organizations need to move along the
continuum closer to the pure network and find their sweet spot there.
Becoming a more networked organization demands new forms of leadership.
Bolman and Deal (2003) revealed that over time the ways in which organizations
were understood have evolved from structural to symbolic, and the type of
leadership needed for each has also evolved. Hierarchies and heroic leadership
worked when organizations were viewed structurally. Now that organizations
are viewed symbolically as hives or networks, heroic leadership can no longer
work. Constructivist leadership and its subset of leadership capacity were
examined as offering the type of leadership needed for organizations that today
operate amidst complexity.
This study sought to examine the ways in which an Information Age tool, Social
Network Analysis, could be employed to expand leadership capacity and move
an organization along the continuum towards being fully networked. What the
study discovered is that inertia continued to keep the school district leadership
team under study from breaking free of its formal structures, despite its best
intentions to open up lines of communication. The results indicated that
participants continued to align themselves with like others and in so doing
created isolation and fragmentation. The study found that transparency, trust,
and collaboration were all, to varying degrees impaired, and thus hampered the

18
expansion of capacity necessary to become more networked. Finally, it found
that human connections are the core of the organization and that many of these
connections and interactions were left to chance because they were unknown.
The power of SNA is the ability to uncover these interactions and manage them
smartly.
8. References
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Bensimon, E. M., Neumann, A., & Birnbaum, R. (1989). Making sense of administrative
leadership: The ―L‖ word in higher education. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education
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Leadership in action, 23(1), 3-7. Retrieved from
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Krebs, V. (1996). Visualizing human networks. Release 1.0: Esther Dyson’s monthly report
(12 Feb 96). Retrieved from http://www.orgnet.com/cases.html.
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Retrieved February 20, 2008 from
http://www.orgnet.com/BuildingNetworks.pdf
Lambert, L. (2002). Leading the conversations. In Lambert, L., Walker, D., Zimmerman,
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(2nd ed., pp.34-62). New York: Teachers College Press.
Lambert, L. (2002). Toward a deepened theory of constructivist leadership. In Lambert,
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et al. The Constructivist Leader (2nd ed., pp. 34-62). New York: Teachers College
Press.
Lambert, L. (2003). Leadership capacity for lasting school improvement. Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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Lambert, L. (Spring 2005). What does leadership capacity really mean? Retrieved from
http://www.nsdc.org/members/jsd/lambert262.pdf
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Jossey-Bass.
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McKelvey, B. (2004). ―Simple rules‖ for improving corporate IQ: Basic lessons from
complexity science. In P. Andriani & G. Passiante (Eds.), Complexity theory and
the management of networks (pp. 39-52). London: Imperial College Press.
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Pierce, M. K. (2007). A determination of the reliability and construct validity of the Leadership
Capacity School Survey. Retrieved from
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Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994) Social network analysis: Methods and applications. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Watts, D. J. (2003). Six degrees: The science of a connected age. New York: W. W. Norton.
Weick, K. E. (2008). Leadership when events don’t play by the rules. Retrieved December 4,
2008, from
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Prentice Hall.

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© 2014 The author and IJLTER.ORG. All rights reserved.
Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 20-31, June 2014
Implementation of a Teaching and Learning
Model: Institutional, Programme and
Discipline level at a University of Technology
in South Africa.
Dr Pauline Machika
Vaal University of Technology
Centre for Academic Development
Vanderbijlpark, South Africa
Abstract. To improve the quality of teaching in a university of
technology and to produce the necessary graduate skills which will
improve the economy of South Africa (Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley
2009), a teaching and learning model should be implemented at three
levels, namely the institution-wide, programme and discipline-specific
level. Universities of technology are increasingly required to implement
a teaching and learning model with an appropriate operational plan.
Based on research that was conducted at a South African university of
technology, this article focuses on the importance of implementing a
teaching and learning model with an operational plan, from the
perspective of academic staff who experience tensions at the three
above-mentioned levels. Within the state of flux due to the transition
from technikon to university status, the university of technology in
question has experienced difficulty in positively changing its
institutional context to an enabling environment in terms of its teaching
and learning model. Four individual interviews and nine group
interviews were conducted with thirty-six academic staff members. The
results show that a disenabling environment is created for teaching and
learning at a university of technology if the teaching and learning model
is not implemented at an institutional level and is not cascaded down to
a programme and discipline-specific level within a university-wide
operational plan.
Keywords: Implementation; Teaching and Learning; Model;
Institutional Programme; Discipline Level
INTRODUCTION
The implementation of a new teaching and learning model for a university of
technology is a direct response to improving the teaching quality within a
university so as to produce the necessary graduate skills which will improve the
economy of South Africa (Altbach et al. 2009). The teaching and learning model
at the said university of technology is a policy document that outlines the

21
academic direction the university of technology will take in view of teaching and
learning based on of an analysis of the social, economic, political, intellectual
and cultural context it locates itself in. The teaching and learning model of the
university of technology places an emphasis on pedagogical research and the
scholarship of teaching and learning (D’Andrea and Gosling 2005:147). The aim
of the teaching and learning model is to ensure that at an institutional,
programme and discipline specific level that students are at the centre of the
learning experience, control their own learning, assume responsibility for
learning, initiate learning goals and regulate their performance towards these
goals (Jonassen . 2004:75).
Any implementation of a teaching and learning model needs to be meaningful
and not left embedded in a strategic document with very little impact. Should
this occur the teaching and learning model becomes a vehicle of change for the
sake of change with very little meaning at an institutional, programme and
discipline-specific level. Hénard and Roseveare (2012) contended that for the
quality of teaching to improve in a university it should occur at three levels,
namely the institution-wide level (including projects such as policy design and
support to organisation and internal quality assurance systems); the programme
level (comprising actions to measure and enhancing the design, content and
delivery of the programmes within a department or a school); and a discipline-
specific level (including initiatives that help teachers achieve their mission,
encouraging them to innovate and to support improvements to student learning
and adopt a learner-oriented focus). As a result focus is being placed on a
university of technology to implement a teaching and learning model with an
appropriate operational plan, universities are under pressure to offer
institutional leadership when implementing a teaching and learning model by
continuously adapting while upholding quality standards. The Teaching and
Learning Charter formulated by Higher Education South Africa (HESA 2012)
stated that it is the responsibility of the institution to create an enabling
environment which will ensure quality interaction between teachers and
students.
The dilemma arises when the lecturers have no clearly defined university-wide
operational plan by which to implement the new teaching and learning model.
This article outlines why it is important to implement a teaching and learning
model with an operational plan at a university of technology within a South
African context. Sustained quality teaching policies require long-term, non-
linear efforts and thus call for a permanent institutional commitment from the
top leadership of the institution (OECD 2012). The operational plan should
embody the rules, regulations, policy frameworks, necessary infrastructure –
physical, human resources and financial – as well as engagement with
stakeholders who are involved in the implementation. An operational plan is
able to create an institution-wide enabling environment for teaching and
learning and provides the framework for implementation at an institutional,
programme and discipline-specific level.

22
In the following sections a theoretical framework is presented which highlights
tensions experienced by academics working at a university of technology where
a new teaching and learning model is being implemented without an
operational plan (Abualrub, Karseth and Stensaker 2013). The results and
discussion develop an understanding of the importance of implementing a
teaching and learning model at an institutional, programme and discipline-
specific level at a university of technology. Further recommendations outline
four underlying principles when implementing a teaching and learning model at
the institutional, programme and discipline-specific level. In the conclusion
emphasis is placed the impact for a university of technology when the teaching
and learning model is not cascaded down from an institutional to the
programme and discipline-specific levels.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The introduction of a teaching and learning model by higher education
institutions is often a direct response to poor throughput rates and the need to
produce a skilled workforce to meet the challenges of the 21st century (Hénard
and Roseveare 2012). Without good throughput rates South Africa will fail in its
economic imperative to produce employable graduate skills. Higher education
needs to play a strong role in helping the country meet the demand for skilled
workers (National Development Plan 2012). As a result, higher education
institutions have responded to this ever-growing demand by implementing new
teaching and learning models (Kuh 2008). The report of the National Planning
Commission (2012) concluded that higher education is the major driver of the
information and knowledge systems linking it with economic development.
Approximately 30 percent of the students who enter the South African higher
education system annually drop out during their first year of studies, while less
than 50 percent of the students who enrol in diploma or degree programmes
ever graduate at higher education institutions (Scott, Yeld and Hendry 2007.
Knapper (2003, 6) claimed that the broadening of access has brought a large
number of underprepared students into higher education and as a result
traditional teaching methods and practices have become unsuitable for enabling
the underprepared student to meet the educational demands of the late 20th and
early 21st century. Management of universities view the implementation of the
teaching and learning model as a means of improving the throughput rates of
students as well as meeting the needs of students who have entered higher
education with insufficient capacity to engage with teaching and learning due to
their under preparedness (Scott 2009). The introduction of a teaching and
learning model allows universities to be responsive to the ever-changing needs
of the student body at a strategic level. It further allows institutions to create an
institutional climate and systems that values student learning, by creating an
institution-wide ethos where learning is the focus of all academic and
administrative work (Del Favero, 2002). Central to this is an understanding of
the components of an institutional climate which includes the measurement of
staff engagement and satisfaction and considering multiple levels of student
engagement and satisfaction, institutional effectiveness, organisation,
management which are aspects that have been largely neglected to date in

23
higher education (Chalmers 2007). Several factors impact the implementation of
the teaching and learning model which focuses on the constructivist approaches
to teaching by exploring the students’ current understanding and immersing
them in authentic problem situations (Innes, 2004:107; Robbins; Judge; Odendaal
and Roodt, 2009).
They are namely the flux experienced due to the technikon’s transition to a
university of technology. The University of Technology is so often busy putting
new rules and regulations into place and is struggling so hard to apply the rules
consistently that it finds it very difficult to implement a new teaching and
learning model. In the state of flux due to the transition from technikon to
university status, the University of Technology has experienced difficulty in
positively changing its institutional context to an enabling environment in terms
of its teaching and learning model. Further factors include dwindling and
overstretched resources, a reliance on traditional teaching methods and
overburdened lecturers with large classes and with limited and insufficient
infrastructure make it difficult to apply the principles and methods put forward
in the teaching and learning model (Kuh, Kinzie, Shuh, Whitt and Associates
2010; Wolf-Wendel, Ward and Kinzie 2009). Another factor is a lack of
understanding which exists concerning what an operational planning should
look like and how it should be implemented in a university of technology. Many
institutional leaders are reconsidering how to manage the balance in fulfilling
their teaching and research missions and how to raise the quality of teaching
and learning they deliver (Hénard and Roseveare 2012) Gibb (2009) further
argued that there can be tensions between institutional leaders seeking to change
the culture of the institution through centralised steering and the collegial
culture that reflects the discipline-specific features of academia. If connections
have not already been built between the two approaches namely the traditional
teaching methods and the new constructivist approach advocated by the teaching and
learning model, then these tensions will slow the progress that can be made on
fostering quality teaching. Indeed, when strategies are implemented from the
centre in a top-down approach, with little or no engagement academic staff
tends to ignore them (OECD 2010, Chalmers 2007).
In response to the above-mentioned challenges the University of Technology
under study has implemented a teaching and learning model based on social
constructivism and active learning (Robbins, Judge, Odendaal and Roodt 2009).
Social constructivism and student learning is defined as encouraging a deep or
mastery student learning approach and student experimentation in the learning
process, as well as accounting for student needs rather than adopting a teacher-
centered, passive learning approach (Umbach and Wawrzynski, 2005). However,
the implementation of this teaching and learning model at an institutional,
programme and discipline levels has not proven to be effective. Cameron and
Quinn (2006) stated that the transformation of an institutional context depends
on culture change, because when values, orientations, definitions and goals stay
constant – even when procedures and strategies are altered without the
necessary resources – institutional contexts return quickly to the status quo.
Institutional climates and systems are one of the four dimensions of teaching

24
practice to ensure an enhanced learning environment which benefits students
(Chalmers, 2007).
Special focus is placed on the creation of an enabling environment through the
implementation of a teaching and learning model with an operational plan at the
institutional, programme and discipline levels, as an institutional responsibility
towards quality teaching and learning. Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) outlined
that the enabling environment surrounding teaching and learning can include
the following: managerial and administrative structures and behaviour, collegial
partnerships between lecturers, and the campus climate with resources provided
to support the teaching and learning processes. According to Huang and Fisher
(2011), an enabling environment consists of variables such as specialised
teachers, resources and laboratories at the organisational level where learning is
taking place. This definition highlights that for a teaching and learning model to
be successfully implemented in an enabling environment it needs to be
supported by arrangements at an organisational level (Abualrub et al. 2013).
Higher Education South Africa (HESA 2012) emphasised that academic success
is promoted through the offering of institutional leadership which includes
creating an enabling environment at an institutional, programme and discipline
specific level that will ensure quality interaction between students and lecturers.
The role of institutional management in the teaching and learning process
cannot be underestimated as they are often the stakeholders who need to
motivate actions and processes for the development of an enabling teaching and
learning environment through the implementation of a teaching and learning
model at an institutional, programme and discipline specific level (OECD 2012).
Without an operational plan which can assist discipline-specific academics in
implementing the new teaching and learning model change will not take place at
the institutional, programme and discipline specific levels. Such a vacuum
created by the lack of an operational plan and limited resources when
implementing a teaching and learning model causes academics to function
within a disabling environment which can cause tension between various
stakeholders involved in teaching and learning.
When the teaching and learning model is implemented without an operational
plan, academic staff will possibly compete for limited resources, and such a state
of affairs will have an impact on the institutional values, rewards and
behaviours. The lack of resources to implement an institution’s teaching and
learning model could cause a shift in focus within the institution as the efforts to
change teaching and improve learning might lead to battles over institutional
values, rewards and behaviours (Lazerson, Wagener and Shumanis, 2000, 19). If
appropriate resources are not provided, academic staff might display
demotivating behaviour as they are not able to implement innovative teaching
and learning practices and therefore resort to maintaining traditional teaching
and learning practices. Watts et al. (2007) argued that at the individual level,
both researchers and managers need to be more open to learning and change,
since ultimately, institutional change can only occur through changes in
behaviour, attitudes, relationships and activities, all of which depend on

25
individual insights and decisions. Thus examining and revising relevant
policies’ and practices that impact on the quality of teaching and learning
becomes relevant (Chalmers 2007). When the teaching and learning model is
implemented at the discipline level, the institution and the programme levels
cannot appraise teacher satisfaction and remedial actions cannot be considered.
Lecturers attempting to implement innovative teaching and learning
methodologies often find their ideas and efforts being stifled and squashed
(OECD 2010).
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research was based on qualitative research utilising an interpretivist
paradigm with content analysis as research design. A document analysis of the
strategic teaching and learning model was done to identify the teaching and
learning model aims and the nature of the changes required. Group interviews
were conducted with lecturers to establish the nature of the current teaching,
learning and assessment discipline-specific practices.
PARTICIPANTS
Ninety lecturers participated in the study and were identified as attendants of
the in-house staff development conference at the university of technology
during the first semester of 2012. Interviews were scheduled to take place during
the last week of October 2012. Thirty-six academic staff members were available
at the times scheduled for interviews. Four individual interviews and nine
group interviews were conducted. The group interviews consisted of three to
five people per group. Staff members were from the following disciplines:
Accounting, Bio-Science, Chemistry, Communication, Education, Engineering,
Information Technology, Legal Science, Management Science and Sport
Management, and three participants were from various support services.
Each of the in-depth interviews with individuals lasted for 40 minutes while
each of the group interviews lasted one hour. The interviews were conducted
with lecturers who looked specifically at challenges encountered by discipline-
specific academics in teaching, learning and assessment at the university of
technology where a teaching and learning model had been implemented
without an operational level. The interview guide consisted of the following
questions:
1. What is your opinion about current teaching learning and assessment in
your department?
2. What do you think is important in terms of teaching, learning and
assessment in your department?
3. What do you consider standard practice in terms of teaching, learning and
assessment in your department?
4. What lecturer and student behaviour and practices are encouraged in terms
of teaching, learning and assessment?
5. What lecturer and student behaviour and practices are rewarded?
(What is considered to be quality work?)

26
6. What would you like to see changed in teaching learning and assessment in
your department?
The questions were adapted for the interview process with participants from the
support services. The word “in your department” was replaced with “at the
University of Technology”. Permission to conduct the study was granted by the
relevant institutional authorities. The purpose of the study was explained to the
lecturers and their consent to record the interviews was obtained. Participation
was voluntary and both anonymity and confidentiality were assured.
DATA ANALYSIS
The qualitative data analysis of transcriptions of the in-depth interviews was
done with the use of ATLAS.ti software. Qualitative content analysis according
to the steps suggested by Henning, Van Rensburg and Smit (2004) was the
method of analysis. These steps imply an inductive approach involving fine
coding, categorisation of codes and identification of themes.
RESULTS
The research results highlight the impact on a university of technology when the
teaching and learning model at an institutional level is not cascaded down to a
programme and discipline-specific level within a university-wide operational
plan.
TENSIONS AT AN INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL
Without the operational plan the teaching and learning model will possibly
never shape the institutional context of the university towards innovating
teaching and learning practice. The Teaching and Learning Charter formulated
by Higher Education South Africa (HESA 2012) noted that the promotion of
academic success is realised through the offering of institutional leadership.
The teaching and learning model needs to be accompanied by operational plans
that should be cascaded down from the institutional to the programme and
discipline-specific lecturer level. A participant commented as follows:
We have so many different types of policies … this one is
coming with an academic plan, this one is coming with a
research plan, this one is coming with a quality one … I have
said so many times to my manager, identify two or three at the
end of the year for the next year and try to implement it and
also monitor it and measure it that it is working. You must
have an implementation plan, not a general implementation.
The decisions relating to the provision of resources are taken at an institutional
level. A participant stated:
Definitely the facilities. Venues must be adapted for different
learning styles … and different methods. Teaching methods to
… it must be open for us to do all these things.

27
In a university of technology where proper resourcing is not provided by the
institutional context to ensure the implementation of the teaching and learning
model the teaching and learning environment becomes disabling. (Chalmers)
2007 agreed that institutional climates and systems are one of the four
dimensions of teaching practice to ensure an enhanced learning environment
which benefits students. The role that the institutional context plays in the
implementation of a teaching and learning model is crucial, as is emphasised by
Exeter et al. (2010) who argued that the lack of resources in support of teaching
and learning needs to be addressed if the teaching and learning model is to be
implemented.
TENSIONS AT A PROGRAMME LEVEL
When a new teaching and learning model is introduced tensions are created for
academic staff who struggle to develop new innovative teaching and learning
practices at a programme level. Due to the lack of resources such as suitable
venues for small group teaching, staff’ finds it very difficult to implement new
teaching and learning methods together with or instead of the current traditional
practices at a programme level. A participant noted:
So that is a challenge, we don’t have resources in the form of
assistance to help us with trying to get this students into
smaller groups.
The response of the above-mentioned participant highlights the emergence of a
lack of space to translate the teaching and learning model at a programme level.
The tension further increases among discipline-specific lecturers and
management, especially when ideas are not cascaded down from the
institutional to the programme level. Owing to the lack of support from the
institution lecturers often find that translating the teaching and learning model
at a programme level is overwhelming. One participant articulated this
challenge as follows:
With support now the problem is, here we are and I have to
teach myself and if I have to be thrown into the deep end,
having to manage designing and manage, I don’t know – it is
overwhelming.
The above-mentioned comment highlights the need to understand academics at
the programme level who are involved in teaching and learning. Chalmers 2007
stated that it is important for academics at a programme level to examine and
revising relevant policies’ and practices that impact on the quality of teaching
and learning. The Teaching and Learning Charter formulated by Higher
Education South Africa (HESA 2012) acknowledged that the success of teaching
and learning activities requires inputs and undertakings from a wide range of
stakeholders.

28
The academic staffs are of the opinion that if they are respected and valued by
the institutional context the campus at a programme level will be enabling for
teaching and learning. Receiving support by creating an environment that is
conducive to learning therefore is essential to ensuring that teaching and
learning model is implemented at a programme level. The lack of resources at a
programme level to implement the teaching and learning model can become a
hindering factor. A typical example is when lecturers discover that the lecture
rooms are in a bad state of repair. This strengthens the belief among lecturers
that the institutional context is not an environment that is conducive to teaching
and learning at a programme level. A participant reflected:
That you have to carry your computer, your projector, your
files with whatever stuff in, and yes, we … then you have to be
in the U-block and then in the B-block. There are problems
with that … There is too much light for them to see the slide
shows …
The environment often compromises the purpose of the teaching and learning
model. This is evident in the following university of technology from a lecturer:
You try to teach, but i think the environment at times could
also hamper the learning in the process. The noises around the
venues are also disturbing.
The above-mentioned views from the participants of the study show that
lecturers require the university to work with them in a partnership by creating
an environment that is conducive to teaching and learning at a programme level.
TENSIONS AT THE DISCIPLINE LEVEL
The environment often compromises the purpose of the teaching and learning
model at a discipline-specific level. A disabling environment creates and
develops various kinds of behaviour from lecturers at the discipline-specific
level. A disabling environment can cause lecturers to go to class unprepared.
This is reflected in the following comment:
It is also true that some lecturers are not up to the task.
Lecturers are able to complete the lecture in 45 minutes but
some lecturers do it in 20 minutes. He is supposed to be there
for 45 minutes. But he decides to arrive late until the student
starts complaining.
In a disabling environment teaching and learning often becomes information
transfer from the lecturer to the student and this promotes a surface-level
approach to learning with limited student engagement at a discipline-specific
level. These kind of teaching and learning methods are not advocated and
capsulated in the teaching and learning model. One of the participants argued as
follows:

29
… but then you find it difficult to move around, because the
venues in most cases cannot hold the number of students, but
the number of students can become a problem to them on its
own. That is why I am saying most of the lecturers you find
that they are stepping in front, just passing information; it is
the most convenient way of teaching.
This kind of behaviour displayed by discipline-specific lecturers’ shows that
when a teaching and learning model is implemented without an operational
plan a lack of understanding concerning the role of the lecturer within the
teaching and learning environment emerges. This is supported by (HESA 2012)
that argued that the teaching and learning charter formulated by Higher
Education South Africa stated that it is the responsibility of the institution to
create an enabling environment which will ensure quality interaction between
teachers and students. The behaviour cited in the above-mentioned comment
shows that lecturers do not understand their role in enhancing student learning
and contributing to the quality level of interaction in the class at a discipline-
specific level as capsulated in the teaching and learning model. Tinto (2007)
emphasised that the interaction among students, as well as between students
and the lecturer, should be of high quality otherwise it could result in the
students failing or dropping out.
DISCUSSION
The results of the study imply that without an operational plan the teaching and
learning model will not be cascaded down from the institutional level to the
programme and discipline-specific level. This inference supports the
recommendations of a study by Watts et al. (2007) that, at the system level,
operational paradigms may need to be examined and networks expanded or
reconfigured. As a result the implementation of the teaching and learning model
is left within the hands of few and becomes a disenabling process. Cameron and
Quinn (2006) stated that when procedures and strategies are altered without the
necessary resources, disabling environments for teaching and learning emerge
rather than enabling environments.
The lack of an operational plan and limited resources creates a vacuum which
results in academics competing for limited resources at a programme and
discipline-specific level. This view is supported by Cameron and Quinn (2006)
who argued that the transformation of an institutional context depends on
culture change, due to the fact that when values, orientations, definitions and
goals stay constant – even when procedures and strategies are altered without
the necessary resources – institutional contexts return quickly to the status quo.
Central to the research results are four underlying principles when
implementing a teaching and learning model at the institutional, programme
and discipline-specific level. These principles are:
1. The institutional context can never be underestimated as it shapes the
conceptual framework for a teaching and learning model but if it is not
accompanied by an operational plan which includes the programme and

30
discipline-specific level the teaching and learning model will remain a
conceptual framework at an institutional level (OECD, 2012).
2. The implementation of the teaching and learning model is interlinked at
an institutional, programme and discipline-specific level and works
together to ensure that the operational plan is implemented within a
university of technology (OECD, 2012).
3. The teaching and learning model is shaped at the programme level
because this is where the comprising actions to measure and enhancing
the design, content and delivery of the programmes. Should the
programme level not be implemented correctly, the lack of
implementation will have a negative impact on the implementation at a
discipline level. This will result in individuals having difficulty at a
discipline level in achieving their mission, encouraging them to innovate
and to support improvements to student learning and adopt a learner-
oriented focus (Hénard and Roseveare, 2012).
4. When the teaching and learning model is not implemented with an
operational plan which includes institutional, programme and
discipline-specific level, a disenabling environment is created for
teaching and learning at a university of technology (Adams and Granic,
2009).
CONCLUSION
In conclusion it should be noted that teaching and learning model must be
accompanied by an operational plan which includes the institutional,
programme and discipline-specific levels. When the teaching and learning
model is not implemented with an operational plan which includes these levels,
a disenabling environment is created for teaching and learning at a university of
technology. The insights from academics in of the current teaching and learning
practices at a university of technology help towards understanding of how
tensions have an effect at an institutional, programme and discipline-specific
level when a teaching and learning model is implemented without an
operational plan. It is recommended that further research be done on the content
of an operational plan for a teaching and learning model at a university of
technology. Such a plan should entail a step-by-step approach that includes the
institutional, programme and discipline-specific levels to ensure that the
operational plan is implemented successfully within a university of technology.
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32
Vol. 6, No.1, pp. 32-42, June 2014
Effects of Bioethics Integration on the Critical
Thinking and Decision-Making Skills of High
School Students
Sally B. Gutierez
National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development
University of the Philippines Diliman
Quezon City, Philippines
Rosanelia T.Yangco
College of Education
University of the Philippines Diliman
Quezon City, Philippines
Abstract. Students nowadays are becoming responsive and aware of their rights
and privileges. As such, educational institutions started to develop the cognitive
skills of students such as their critical thinking and decision-making skills across
disciplines. This study focused on Bioethics Integration in high school Biology
classes to determine its effects on the critical thinking and decision-making skills
of the students. Using a quasi-experimental research design, results of the t-test
on the pre- and post-test mean scores of students significantly revealed that
Bioethics Integration is another useful approach in teaching high school biology.
Various teaching strategies were employed in teaching such as moral games,
debates, and group case analyses. In this study, the positive effects of Bioethics
Integration were influenced by factors such as interactive teaching strategies
used, timeliness of the topics, and teacher‟s questioning strategies. Group work
and collaborative effort in most of the activities of students enhanced their
capacity to communicate well allowing them to gain respect from their peers for
their opinions–the first step in developing ethics in the learning environment.
Keywords: bioethics; biology education; critical thinking skills; decision-
making skills
Introduction
The continuous advancement of biotechnology and cell biology during the past
decades has been coupled with ethical issues (Hails, 2004). The benefits and
risks of these biotechnological advancements like genetic engineering, stem cell
research, cloning, the Human Genome Project, Genetically Modified Organisms
(Hails, 2004) and their social acceptance comprise most of the issues. This
scientific dilemma has propelled educators to make their students more
informed and critical in judging such issues. In scientific researches, ethics has
emerged with the gruesome medical experiments on genetics concerning the

33
Human Genome Project and the clinical trials during its completion stages
(Terec-Vlad & Terec-Vlad, 2013). Thus, there have been efforts to reinforce more
of bioethics especially in research institutions.
Initially, with the aim to address and lessen public misinformation, bioethics
education began to be included in the tertiary education curricula with emphasis
on medical and health issues such as gene therapy and euthanasia. In these
curricula, most of the topics are geared towards the training on heightened
sensitivity of students on ethical issues and values in medicine. This is to ensure
that science and technology are used to protect rather than endanger human
dignity, health, well-being, and diversity (Selvakumar & Joseph, 2004).
Skills in dealing with ethical problems arising in the healthcare environment are
given more emphasis and in fact taken as obligatory continuing medical
education requirements (Robb, Etchells, Cusimano, Cohen, Singer, & McKneally,
2005). According to Turrens (2005), the inclusion of bioethics in the biomedical
sciences program improved the awareness of students on the current bioethical
problems and issues concerning professional integrity. In Malaysian Law
schools, bioethics is simultaneously discussed with Medical Law courses
focusing on medico-legal issues such as medical negligence, informed consent,
euthanasia, abortion, organ transplantation, brain death, and stem cell
researches (Kamilan, Ashiqin & Amin, 2011).
The burden of establishing morally acceptable practices falls on everyone. Thus,
there is a need to extend beyond the professional communities of the
bioengineering and biotechnology industries for thoughtful engagement in
bioethical decision making (Lee, 2011). Since it has been offered in the tertiary
education, secondary students also need to be informed not only about the
significant facts and theories of the natural sciences but also the conflicts of
values and ideals arising from the practical applications of these facts and
theories.
Most of the time, students‟ curiosity is focused on the environment around
them. In fact, the continuous advancement of biotechnology and bioengineering
has caught a lot of their attention (Urker, Yildiz, & Cobanoglu, 2012). As a
result, there is an inherent tendency for them to ethically question them and this
can be answered e enhanced through bioethics integration in science classes.
This may set the role of bioethics education to impart a set of skills and attitudes
that may give students the opportunity to explore current social and ethical
questions in a professional and personal way.
Value judgments in terms of stimulating the moral imagination of students
through analysis of key concepts and principles and recognition of ethical issues
may help students develop the responsibility to deal with moral ambiguity and
disagreement. In fact, recognizing social norms is a secondary measure of
performance in value-assessment and is necessary when one reflects on what
others think (Parker & Fischhoff, 2005). It is also important to increase public
awareness on the newly emerging trends in genetics and biotechnology not only

34
through media but with well-structured information dissemination in the
education setting (de Castro, 2000).
One of the basic goals of education is to train students to become critical thinkers
and decision makers. This is to equip them with the ability to assess increasing
amounts of information they are presented with from a variety of sources in
their everyday lives (Butchart, Bigelow, Oppy, Korb & Gold, 2009). Critical
thinking and decision-making skills are two of the skills which can be enhanced
through bioethics integration in life science classes because the application of
scientific knowledge is one of the primary concerns of the subject matter. In this
teaching approach, students will share the responsibility of valuing inquiry on
moral issues quite urgent in the world today. This can lead them to better
understand and simplify on their own the growing complexity brought about by
technology.
While various learning strategies and approaches for teaching ethical aspects of
science have been developed in recent years, Asada, Tsuzuki, Akiyama, Macer,
and Macer, (1996) mentioned that the exploration of socio-scientific issues helps
develop students‟ self-confidence, enhance critical thinking, enable more
balanced consideration of socio-scientific issues, and stimulate sensitivity to the
rights of others. Greater understanding and tolerance of the religious, spiritual
or secular beliefs, and the cultural traditions and values of others may also be
enhanced. Classroom-based resources produced for bioethics education can
help build frameworks within which these tensions may be explored in a
culturally-informed and respectful environment. This anticipates the
involvement of biology teachers in raising controversial issues as well as
stressing why decisions about science and technology are made (Jones, 2007).
Bioethics integration can therefore be a timely approach to enhance critical
thinking and decision-making skills among secondary students. Science, which
plays a major role in the changing physical world, can be taught in a proactive
manner that aims to develop the critical thinking and decision-making skills of
students.
Method
This study used the quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent group of
research participants who belong to the Grade 8 level from two intact classes in a
Philippine public school in Region 4A. In the Philippines, grouping of students
in sections is usually done prior to the formal start of classes in June. Because of
this, the researchers were not able to do discretionary measures to re-group the
students. However, according to the school officials, the student groups were
heterogeneous, meaning; these students were not grouped according to
intellectual capability.
During the study, one group was exposed to Bioethics Integration (Bioethics
Integration Group) while the other group was not (Conventional Group). Both

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