The Dimensionality of Decision Participation in Educational Organizations: The Value of a Multi-Domain Evaluative Approach

Abstract

While the literature on education reform has called for increased teacher participation in decision making, little is known about the decision participation construct itself Previous research in this area may be categorized according to the approach taken with respect to the conceptualization and operationalization of participation in decision making. We argue that an approach which views the construct as both evaluation-based and multi-dimensional in nature has advantages over three other common approaches taken in such studies. A sample of 842 elementary and 689 secondary teachers is used to (a) show the utility of a multi-domain evaluative approach to examine participation in decision making and (b) empirically identify four decision domains.