A comparison study of students' performance: quality/lead management versus boss management styles in technology education

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to compare two educational management philosophies and their systems: boss/top-down management using stimulus-response, and William Glasser’s Quality School, employing W. Edwards Deming’s Quality Control/ Lead Management. An experiment is done to determine whether students in the experimental group demonstrate higher achievement levels at accomplishing class objectives by using Choice Theory/Lead Management systems than in the control group where the experimenter used the traditional classroom management approach of boss management. Two similar home and auto classes are the subjects for the experiment. The goal in the home and auto class is to provide students with valuable, practical consumer information and the physical skills to perform simple construction, repair, maintenance, and care for houses and automobiles. An informational pretest and posttest are used to determine any differences in achievement between the two groups. The final grades of the class members are included to add additional data to compare subject accomplishments. Utilizing a two-tailed t-test with a .05 confidence level, it was determined that there is no significant difference in the overall performance of the home and auto classes using the two different approaches of classroom management. It would appear that different management systems are not a significant factor in academic success or failure when applied to a home and auto technology class.