Surveys usually provide quantitative or numeric descriptions of trends, attitudes or opinions of a population and mostly follow some standard format with some typical components (Creswell, 2003). They are also economical and provide rapid turnaround in data collection especially where the samples are large. Compared to most other approaches, surveys could be cost efficient, have a wide reach and provide respondents with more flexibility. They also allow collection of information on a variety of variables such as was required in this study. They give the possibility to develop a multifaceted instrument to gather the various sets of information.
Despite these advantages, surveys can at times suffer from low response rates or deficient knowhow among respondents to provide useful responses (Sheatsley, 1983:197; Babbie & Babbie, 1990).
4.3.1 The survey sample
At the time of the study, there were 105 deans in Kenyan universities, a number that was considered manageable to wholly include in the survey. We thus included all the deans in the study. After obtaining authority from the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST), Kenya, to conduct the research, data was collected from April to September 2009. We sent the survey questionnaire (see Appendix A) to all the 105 deans in the seven public and fifteen private universities in Kenya at the time of the study (see also next chapter on Kenyan higher education). The questionnaire was accompanied by a cover letter (see appendix G) explaining the purpose of the study and requesting for the participation of the deans. It also assured them of the confidentiality and anonymity with which their responses would be handled. Relevant information for scoring the questionnaire were also included.
Out of the 105 questionnaires sent out, 60 were completed and returned giving a response rate of 57%. Of the 105 deans 71% were from public universities while 29%
were from the private ones. From those who responded to the survey, 68% were from public universities while the remaining 32% were from private universities.
Majority of the respondents were male (82%). The deans were of varied ages: 35%
being between 50-54 years, the three youngest deans were between 30-34 years old, only one dean was beyond 65 years. Many of the deans had served for only one year (44%) with only three having served for more than five years. The terms of most deans in Kenyan universities was three years with possibilities of renewal for another term. Regarding their academic backgrounds, 23% of the deans were from education, the social sciences and humanities each had 16% of the deans while health sciences and engineering related faculties had the least numbers of deans at 3% and 7% respectively.
The deans reported (through the survey) that their universities (93%) were mainly focused on teaching with only 7% reporting that their universities were research based. We also considered institutional factors such as staff and student numbers and the number of faculties or schools within the institutions. Some universities (13%), especially private ones, had less than 5 faculties. The leading and most comprehensive universities (6%) had more than 15 faculties. These were mainly the older public universities including University of Nairobi, Moi University, Kenyatta University and Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology. Five of the seven public universities had more than 20,000 students each. The leading private university in student numbers had 5,000 students. Just over a third of the faculties (36%) had between 1000 to 5000 students.
On staff numbers, 23% of the universities had less than 500 staff while 10 universities recorded having more than 2500 staff. Regarding staff numbers at the faculty level, 37% of the faculties had less than 100 staff members with the 4 leading faculties having more than 500 staff members. Most of the universities (82.5%),
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especially the public ones were secular with only 17.5% of the deans indicating that their universities were faith based. Most of the private universities offered a comparatively small range of academic programmes and thus had fewer deans, staff and students compared to the public universities. Almost all the universities (93%) indicated that they were nonprofit with only 7% reporting that they were for profit.
Generally, there were several differences between the Kenyan deans on different parameters including personal factors such as gender, age and even educational backgrounds. There were also succinct differences between their institutions and faculties based on their sizes, whether they were secular or faith based, teaching or research focused and even for profit or non-profit. It suggests that even though the deans work in the same country context, they had individual and institutional characteristics that could be important in understanding how they managed their faculties.
4.3.2 Self-report of behaviour
Most statements in our questionnaire were in the form of a Likert Scale which has attained wide usage in such surveys. One advantage of the Likert Scale, that also makes it useful for this study, is that it elicits how strongly a respondent feels about a phenomenon and provides quantitative data which can be analysed statistically (Nunally & Bernstein, 1994). The scale items in the questionnaire are supposed to have approximately the same size and same level of importance to the respondents and going in the same direction (unidirectional). Most of the statements were on a seven point scale, though there were some few statements to which respondents were required to allocate points according to how important they perceived an item while others required them to rank the statements.
The survey questionnaire was completed only by the deans and not by other faculty or other university members. The deans therefore undertook a self-report of their behaviours. Self-reporting has been considered as one of the most suitable ways of obtaining information about respondent behaviours (Baker & Brandon, 1990). They
allow participants to directly describe their behaviours and experiences rather than the researcher relying on own inferences from observations. They are handy in studying relatively large samples as they are comparatively easy and quick to undertake (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1980; Baker & Brandon, 1990). Self-reports have a strength compared to direct observation especially in instances of behaviours which may not be directly accessible for observation or which may require longer time to observe (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980: 33-38). They also provide an easy means of defining the elements of action, target, context and time at any level of generality (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980, p.39). Since the survey items mainly focused on beliefs, behaviour items and perceptions of deans on issues related to their leadership, self- report was the best way to obtain such data (Baker & Brandon 1990).
There are however some shortcomings associated with self-report of behaviour, especially their susceptibility to validity problems (Wagner & Rabkin, 2000;
Northrup, 2000). One of the shortcomings is the possibility that respondents could provide ideal or expected responses over their actual behaviours (Ericsson & Simon 1993; Bass, 1990) which could result into biased information bearing little relationship to the reality. Participants are likely to be influenced by social desirability biases making them present themselves in a manner viewed favourably by others even if they do not actually behave that way (Jaccard & Blanton, 2005;
Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010; Fiske & Taylor, 1991). There have also been evidence of negligible correspondence between self-reports and officially documented behaviour (Hessing, Dick, Elffers, Henk, Weigel & Russel, 1988). Self- reported behaviour could be different from actual behaviours especially when sensitive behaviours are involved.
Time may also affect the accuracy of self-reported responses in the sense that after a long period of time, respondents may not remember how they behaved compared, for example, to recent behaviours (Schwarz, Groves, & Schuman, 1998). This is the same for less frequent or less familiar behaviours that may not be as easy to recall
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compared with familiar or frequent behaviours (Northrup, 2000). It is assumed that when respondents engage in some behaviour regularly, they are more likely to recall it and thus find it easy to record it in such responses (Jaccard & Blanton, 2005).
Despite these shortcomings, self–reports of behaviour, when properly undertaken, can be quite reliable and valid especially on data on self-information (Fishbein &
Ajzen, 2010:37; Chan, 2009).Some opinions view self-reports more positively even than direct observation by arguing that if you want to know something about someone, it is better to ask them. Such information, especially on people’s behaviours may not be better obtainable in any other way (Osberg & Shrauger, 1986;
Jones, 1985). Our instrument attempted to respond to the possible limitations. First, it was based on issues that deans were likely to experience in most of their daily lives as they execute the responsibilities of their positions and thus not susceptible to misreporting due to difficulties in remembering their occurrence. Most of the deans in the study had been in their positions for an average of two years which could be considered not so long for them to forget their daily leadership behaviours.
Second we also do not believe that our instrument had very sensitive questions that could prompt deans to give responses so much different from their actual behaviours. Even if some of the questions could have been sensitive, one of the best ways of attaining reliable answers on such questions is by self-reporting where for example the deans do not have to directly respond to an interviewer. There are adequate empirical findings (Chan, 2009; Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010) suggesting that self-reports of behaviour (as well as of attitudes, social norms and perceived behavioural control) are accurate and valid for collecting personal information. This then provides a basis for our reliance on dean’s self-report of their leadership behaviours, attitudes, social norms and perceived behavioural control.