A study of the beliefs for total quality management comparing superintendents, board members, and classroom teachers in Iowa schools

The purpose of this study was to assess the beliefs of superintendents, board members, and teachers regarding total quality management;After the review of literature was completed, 42 belief statements were created to assess and compare educators\u27 beliefs concerning Deming\u27s 14 points (three beliefs for each of the 14 points) as they apply to education;The sample used in this study represented the responses from one board member, one superintendent, and one teacher from 42 school districts in the State of Iowa. To insure geographical and population representation, three school districts were chosen at random from each of the 14 Area Education Agencies (AEA). The three school districts chosen from each AEA were selected based upon their student population. The student population categories chosen were 0 to 500, 501 to 1,500, and greater than 1,500;Initial data analysis involved four separate procedures. First, total means and standard deviations were calculated for the ratings given each of the 42 belief statements by the 104 respondents. Means and standard deviations across participants were calculated for the 14 subscales that were organized according to Deming\u27s 14 points. As a third statistical procedure, one-way analysis of variance was performed to test for significant differences among the mean ratings for each of the 14 points as well as for the 42 individual belief statements comparing the three participant groups. The one-way analysis of variance was used to test the research null hypothesis that there would be no significant differences among the mean scores of the beliefs, when comparing the three groups\u27 responses to each of the 42 belief statements and the 14 points in the Educator Beliefs Survey;The final statistical procedure involved conducting the Scheffe post hoc multiple range procedure (p ≤.05);In summary, if schools are going to implement total quality management, there appear to be several major areas that are going to have to be addressed: (1) continuous improvement, (2) the use of goals and slogans, (3) the use of tests and grades, (4) using statistical assessment, and (5) employee evaluation/merit system