1. Descriptive Statistics
Applying affective engagement to change organizational culture: A secondary analysis of sexual assault prevention and reporting outcomes on U.S. Air Force technical training campuses
Steve Ellis, H. Quincy Brown
The University of Southern Mississippi Department of Human Capital Development
INTRODUCTION
MAJOR FINDINGS
The research measures changes in organizational culture by evaluating trends in student perceptions of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and unprofessional relationships. Additionally, and-of-course survey data compares beliefs about consequences, perceived norms, and control factor behaviors. The time-series data showed no significant improvement in the experimental croups over the control groups that coincided with the change in curriculum. To the contrary, organizational tolerance of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and unprofessional relationships improved in the control groups over the time-period of the study. However, experimental groups did not show any discernable improvement.
The negative impact of sexual misconduct on human capital includes lower job satisfaction in the military and increased medical problems for veteran survivors of unwanted sexual contact (Antecol & Cobb-Clark, 2001)
Sexual assault, sexual harassment, and unprofessional relationships are not consistent with U.S. Air Force vision to foster a culture that promotes dignity and respect. These problems reduce military readiness and retention of talented personnel while increasing medical costs to taxpayers. To combat these problems, the U.S. Air Force revised its sexual assault prevention and reporting curriculum to employ affective engagement techniques at four technical training campuses.
This research attempts to answer whether increasing the affective engagement of SAPR curriculum influences organizational culture on Air Force technical training campuses
Students’ reaction to the revised curriculum did not show a significant difference between groups.
TBP Survey
Admin
Descriptive Statistics
Levene’s test
t-test M SD n
Sig t
Pre
29.61
7.80
363
.133
-.739
.460
Post
30.07
8.56
338
RO1.
Students’ perceptions of organizational tolerance of sexual assault
Students receiving the revised curriculum (post-treatment) did not perform as well as the control group. Correlation of data trends to the regression lines were moderate to good, therefore the results cannot be discounted.
OBJECTIVES
The research tests the efficacy of increasing the affective engagement of the SAPR curriculum by measuring changes in organizational culture on U.S. Air Force campuses. Affective engagement creates an emotional connection to SAPR topics that may influence individual attitudes, values and beliefs of cultural norms.
RO1. Determine whether students’ reactions to the revised SAPR curriculum showed significant improvement over the previous format of training.
RO2. Describe how students’ perceptions of organizational tolerance of sexual assault vary over time.
RO3. Describe how students’ perceptions of organizational tolerance of sexual harassment vary over time.
RO4. Describe how students’ perceptions of organizational tolerance of behaviors associated with unprofessional relationships vary over time.
RO5. Determine the differences in students’ perception of organizational tolerance of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and unprofessional relationship behaviors corresponding to the timeframe the SAPR curriculum format changed.
RO2.
Students’ perceptions of organizational tolerance of sexual harassment
Although post-treatment group had a negative trend, the pre-treatment scores were largely random and therefore inconclusive. The data does not show the training had any significant impact on outcomes.
METHODOLOGY
The research relies on secondary analysis of Air Force data to measure changes in organizational culture, specifically climate surveys and end-of-course surveys to measure the students’ reaction to the training. This study analyzes data collected from 363 students receiving the original curriculum and 338 students receiving the revised curriculum in independent groups. The data, collected as a time-series, illustrates perceptions of 3,378 students surveyed at locations where the curriculum did not change and 6,698 students surveyed at locations where the curriculum did over a period of 10 fiscal quarters.
RO3.
Students’ perceptions of organizational tolerance of behaviors associated with unprofessional relationships
The experimental group showed little, if any correlation to the regression line before or after the curriculum changed. No trend could be defined.
Measure Reaction
Measure Application
Fostering a Culture of Dignity and Respect
Organizational Tolerance of Sexual Assault
Organizational Tolerance of Sexual Harassment
Organizational Tolerance of Unprofessional Relationships
Course Curriculum
Cultural Change
The Affective Domain
Affective Engagement Strategies
Plausible Scenarios
Lively Classroom Debate
Story Telling
Beliefs affecting planned behavior
Perceived Control of behaviors
Attitudes about Consequences of actions
Perceptions of Social Norms
Student reaction surveys (TPB)
t-test
363 students in original curriculum
338 students in revised curriculum
Training-climate surveys (EOC)
Time-series analysis across 11 quarters
3,348 students in unchanged curriculum
6,698 students at locations where training changed
RO4.
The control group showed a positive trend with good correlation to the regression line. The experimental group could not be defined as a trend due to the poor correlation to the regression line. Therefore, no regression discontinuity could be assigned.
Students’ perception of organizational culture with respect to SAPR
RO5.
CONCLUSIONS
The research shows revising only the curriculum, and not the approach to training, did not correspond to a change in the organizational culture within the training environment.