Institutional core values: operationalising the constructs

Abstract

This research begins to operationalise eight institutional core values at a mid‐sized, Midwestern Catholic university. The survey sought examples of ways in which the graduate students in a master of arts in teaching and leadership programme had and/or had not experienced the institutional core values with the same professor during their four‐course research sequence. The 55 respondents (26% rate) yielded 220 comments contributing to at least three themes for each core value. The results did begin the process of operationlising the core values, while educational best practice was layered through and among the themes. Though generalisation to other populations is not an intended outcome of this research, the 26% return rate and potential responder bias were identified as two possible limitations. Among other ideas, future research is suggested to include additional graduate students and undergraduate students from all disciplines and a variety of faith‐based institutions.

Keywords:

• core values
• operationalisation
• higher education, Catholic

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge the standard course reassignments that provided release time to conduct the study.