Question

The following data are quotes taken from interviews of parents, faculty. and staff of an elementary school by request of the school's. principal, Nancy.

1. Organize these data to present to Nancy. Notice demographic details such as grade level, interviewee role, and tenure.

2. Try organizing the data a different way. Did you notice anything different from the first time you analyzed the data? Which method do you think was more effective?

3. How would you structure the feedback. meeting with Nancy? Which themes would you present and why?

Answer 1

KINDLY RATE THE ANSWER AS THUMB UP. THANKS A LOT

This case study refers to Logan Elementary School and the principal, Nancy Mestas. Logan Elementary is a school that teaches grade levels 1 through 6. For two years Nancy has held the position as the principal and wants to help the connection with the community improve as well as the school employees and staff members that work there. She also wants to improve the consistency in the approach that teachers use in each of the grade levels. They conducted interviews with staff and faculty members, along with the parents of the children in the school in hopes that they would bring a better understanding of the issues the schools facing. In the case study, the reader is to look at the situation as if they were the organizational development practitioner. Its the OD’s job to present the data to Nancy in a feedback meeting

Question One The first question asks, “Organize the data to present to Nancy. Notice demographic details such as grade level, interviewee role, and tenure.” There are 6-grade levels within the school and the interviewees, in this case, including faculty members, staff members and parents of the children who attend the school. The amount of time the interviewees were working/attending the school is between two and nine years. I used inductive analysis and uses several steps to organize the data. To go in more depth for what I did to organize it, I first organized it by day tat the interviews were conducted over the five day period. After that, I organized each interview response by which of the three types of interviews said their feedback, while noting if the summary was positive or negative. If the response was from a parent, I put what grade their child was in at the time of the interview. If the interviewee was a faculty member I included what grade they taught. If the response was from a staff member, I put the amount of time they have worked at Logan Elementary School. When organizing the responses, I put them into five different categories.

The categories I chose, based on the responses, were involvement, communication, faculty meetings, consistency, and funding. These five categories cover the major issues that each of the interviewees had mentioned in their interviews. Organizing the data in this manner showed me that there were several similarities between the responses. Parents of the children at the school had mostly positive reviews and many of them were all connected to the communication factors. But, when evaluating the data from the faculty members, there were comments regarding all five different categories, because I feel that since they work in the environment they know more of what is going on and can speak to more of the issues. Fifth and sixth-grade teachers had the most positive responses, but the fourth grade and lower gave the most negative responses.

One interview that I read said that Nancy used to be a fifth-grade teacher. (Anderson, 2015) I believe this may be an underlying reason why the higher grade levels seem to have the most positive responses. Nancy’s involvement seems to be overall positive and since she is involved with the higher grades, it reflects in the interviews. When looking at the staff members responses the amount of positive and negative responses were pretty equivalent. Even though I organized the data by the amount of time they’ve been at the school, I didn’t see much correlation on whether the response was negative or positive. The staff members talked about involvement and communication the most. I feel that since I broke it down in the best way that I could it helped me see everything I needed to see without making things to complex. I was also able to capture important factors that can help Nancy get straight to the issues that she wishes to address and wants to move forward with.

Question Two The second question asks, “Try organizing the data in a different way. Did you notice anything different from the first time you analyzed the data? Which method do you think was more effective?” Looking back at the data that I had organized the first time I desired to make it more simple. There was so much information that I had gathered when I organized it the first way that I did. When I went back to reorganize it I still kept the five categories that I created the first time, but I decided to organize the data by positive and negative remarks in each category. I did not include the number of years worked or the grade levels. Doing it this way created a more clear view of what needed to be worked on and what didn’t. I think this gives a better overall review of the data collected. The data shows that the most negative comments are filed under the communication section. The most positive remarks received were in the faculty meeting category. The least positive remarks received were in the consistency and funding categories.

Organizing the data in a second perspective brought a lot of situations to my attention. One of those being easy to believe that Nancy is involved in many actives such as kickball games and reading to the kids, but she doesn’t communicate well with others. (Anderson, 2015) The data also broke down the fact that the faculty meetings are almost a neutral ground, as there were almost the same amount of positive and negative responses. The part of the data that blew my mind the most was the fact that there were no positives mentioned about the consistency or the funding. This is where Nancy should focus, in my opinion. Knowing the positive and negatives was the main purpose of organizing it in this direction. Overall, my first method of organizing data was most effective. I believe that even though the second method provided information that was straight to the point, it’s important to know who’s saying what and why they responded with the responses they did. The most important factor is the interviewee role

Question Three The third and final question asks, “How would you structure the feedback meeting with Nancy? Which themes would you present and why?” To prepare to give my feedback to Nancy in the meeting, I would make sure to follow the recommendations provided in the book, which are to begin the meeting with the most positive data provided with maximum detail and ensure that at the data shows trends and agreement. Using proper language and avoiding assumptions are also great strategies to use when providing the data. (Anderson, 2015) Following these recommendations will help the meeting fly by and stay as smooth as possible. Talking about he strengths the interviewees feel that Nancy has such as involvement in school activities would be a great place to begin. When presenting the themes, you want to make sure they are relevant, manageable, selective, descriptive, and sufficient. (Anderson, 2015) Nancy’s goals were to “improve relationships among faculty and staff, build consistency in approach among teachers at each grade level, and improve the relationship between the school and community”. (Anderson, 2015) Knowing this information I would present the data that shows Nancy’s involvement, her communication, and peoples views on consistency. These three categories would be the most effective and beneficial for her to reach all of her goals

Conclusion I believe that the method of data gathering for Logan Elementary School that was used was very effective. Having the knowledge of the grade levels, the amount of time employed, and interviewee role, it made it easy to categorize the data and make assumptions. From the eyes of an OD practitioner, I believe Nancy’s problems mainly have to do with the communication and consistency in the school. Though she seems to be involved with students and members of the factually and staff, she didn’t seem to communicate in a clear and effective matter. According to the interviewees, Nancy didn’t properly communicate the fact that she wanted things to be consistent among the teachers. Communication is huge in business and especially if you’re making a change If people don’t understand that you’re undergoing change or what you’re doing from day one, then they are more likely to feel negative toward the entire situation. Involving them in the process is very important