Background & Objectives
Now more than ever, individuals involved in research administration
are faced with a multitude of challenging situations that go well beyond
the basics of business administration. They are expected to have a
thorough understanding of compliance issues, including the requirements
and regulations of sponsors, the federal government and the institution,
as well as more general guidelines for the responsible conduct of
research. As managers of project and department budgets, administrators
are charged with detailed accounting for sponsored research activities,
above the traditional institutional and gift funds, while keeping their
documentation organized in preparation for internal and external audits
of financial data. They must stay current on the institution's
business practices and technology to conduct their department's
research-related business. As research funding becomes more competitive,
an administrator must become familiar with a myriad of sponsors and
their manifold policies and forms. Finally, the administrator must
support faculty members who conduct research in the medical center
throughout the research process, because in many cases, faculty members
face numerous stressors, including the need to attain and maintain
adequate research funding (Smesny, 2007), which may limit their ability
to manage the minor administrative details of a large project (Emans,
Goldberg, Milstein, & Dobriner, 2008). To successfully navigate the
challenges they face, research administrators need to be involved in
learning communities, which Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) define as
"a place where employees excel at creating, acquiring, and
transferring knowledge" (p. 110). Standing on the shoulders of
Senge (1990), Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) developed a concrete
standard assessment tool for examining the learning organization (LO).
Their survey tool allows companies to measure "the learning that
occurs in a department, office, project, or division-an organizational
unit of any size that has meaningful shared or overlapping work
activities" (p. 110). Their instrument also includes targeted
solutions and concrete prescriptions for improving the LO. In applying
Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino's tool, this one-institution case study
attempts to answer three research questions about the intersection of
the LO and the academic medical center:
1. To what extent is the academic medical center an LO by research
administrators?
2. Does the degree to which research administrators see the
academic medical center as an LO vary by department type within the
research enterprise?
3. Does the degree to which research administrators see the
academic medical center as an LO vary by sex or tenure in the unit, in
the position, or at the medical center?
To answer these questions, a modified version of Garvin, Edmondson,
and Gino's survey instrument was administered in a sample of
convenience to 121 research administrators at a large, private academic
medical center in the southeast United States.
Literature Review
Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) define an LO as a highly
adaptable organization, "made up of employees skilled at creating,
acquiring and transferring knowledge" (p. 109). While creating,
acquiring, and transferring knowledge are among the chief goals of the
research enterprise of any academic medical center, most of these
efforts are limited to the domains of the faculty, students and other
non-faculty personnel, including non-faculty clinical providers.
Institutions go to great lengths to foster and cultivate an environment
that supports this knowledge-based system, oftentimes without
considering the need to encourage such an environment for its research
administrators. This approach neglects the important role administrators
play in the research enterprise.
Research administrators form a distinct professional class within
the institution in both academic medical centers and more traditional
postsecondary institutions. "They are an integral part of the
environment of university research and they shape the work conditions,
the opportunity structure, and constraints" (Schuetzenmeister,
2010, p. 4). Gardner, Verma, and Payne (2006) define research
administration as "the administrative ability that focuses
primarily on planning, organizing and developing processes and
methodologies to ensure that the research team effort is effective,
efficient and successful" (p. 1). Meanwhile, Gumport and Sporn
(1985) describe administrators as "the key actors who mediate and
even manage the relationships between the organization and its
environments" (p. 105). Although lab managers, animal care
technicians, budget accountants, and other administrators have been
crucial to the research enterprise since its inception, the advent of
the research professional is a bureaucratic response to the demands of
sponsors, which include federal and state governments, industry and the
non-profit research-based organizations that emerged with the rise of
the research university in the 1960s (Atkinson, Gilleland, &
Barrett, 2007). As research funding became more important to
universities, and the volume of sponsored research funding grew, the
role and number of research professionals and their level of
responsibility grew (Gumport & Sporn, 1985). This professional role
expanded to include making sense of complicated rules, systems and
processes in the administration of sponsored research as well as the
management of the burden of regulatory compliance with applicable laws,
contracts, institutional policies and sponsor guidelines (Atkinson,
Gilleland, & Barrett, 2007: Cole, 2007). As competition for federal
funding increases and universities face additional scrutiny from
sponsors and the federal government, the role of research administrators
becomes more important and difficult, which in some areas leads to high
levels of stress and high turnover rates (Vasgird, 2007). The 2007
Research Administrator Stress Perception Survey found 41.3 percent of
respondents had high work-related stress, while 66 percent reported
having inadequate resources to complete their jobs (Shambrook &
Brawman-Mintzer, 2006). Though fostering a learning organization (LO)
requires an institution to commit both time and resources, the
organizational results include increased levels of tolerance, open
discussion, and holistic and systemic thinking, which would likely
reduce work-related stress among administrators (Garvin, Edmondson,
& Gino, 2008). The need for such
outcomes has only increased in recent years, with unprecedented
growth in required compliance and administrative activity, including the
administrative requirements linked to research funded by $787 billion in
federal stimulus funds (Basken, 2010).
Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) offer leaders a model of the LO
and provide a concrete instrument that can be used to assess the extent
to which an organization is an LO. The results of the survey and a
comparison of institutional results to established benchmarks provide
specific steps organizations can take to cultivate the LO, and which are
tied to three key building blocks of LOs and characteristics of those
building blocks, which had previously been absent in the LO literature.
A unique benchmarking feature permits organizations to compare their
institution to others or compare units within an institution. A review
of the LO literature indicates no previous use of this instrument to
study higher education or the research enterprise as an LO. However,
higher education, especially an academic medical center, is uniquely
tied to both the world of academia and the world of organized health
care delivery, and the model was chosen for its potential to be very
useful.
This study is grounded in and focused on the world of research
administrators, who usually operate outside the acquisition, creation
and transference of knowledge in the research context, but who must be
actively engaged in the learning process. Because research
administrators lace a number of obstacles to successfully supporting
faculty members' sponsored research activities, including
navigating the difficult waters of compliance, accounting practices,
software packages, sponsor-specific practices and faculty support, they
need a thriving learning community. This assessment will hold up a
mirror to one academic medical center, determine the extent to which its
research administrators perceive the research enterprise as an LO, and
identify gaps in the environment that inhibit its growth.
Conceptual Framework
Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) divide the LO into three
building blocks: a supportive learning environment, concrete learning
processes and practices, and leadership that reinforces learning,
suggesting that "different mechanisms are at work in each
building-block area and that improving performance in each is likely to
require distinct supporting activities" (p. 110). The three
building blocks are:
1. The Supportive Learning Environment has four characteristics:
providing the psychological safety needed for employees to express
themselves and make mistakes; an appreciation of differences in ideas,
outlooks and worldviews; openness to new ideas; and time for reflection.
The organization that makes time for reflection likely learns from its
mistakes because it pauses and thoughtfully reviews and discusses
institutional practices. These pauses also reduce the level of stress
for employees by creating space between actions.
2. Concrete Learning Practices and Processes includes five
characteristics, which Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) call
"'concrete steps and widely distributed activities [including]
... generation, collection, interpretation, and dissemination of
information" (p. 111). These steps include experimentation with new
methods and processes, collecting and sharing information both within
and outside the institution, analysis and interpretation of information,
and both lateral and vertical education and training efforts.
3. Leadership that Reinforces Learning has only one characteristic,
which is based on the behavior of the institution's or unit's
leaders and the nature of the leaders' behavior within the
organization and role they play in actively encouraging or fostering the
LO.
Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino acknowledge that the three building
blocks and their components "reinforce one another and, to some
degree, overlap," (p. 113), but this is part of the LO and reflects
supportive relationships among formal leaders, the environment, and
individuals who make up the organization.
Methods
The 55-question tool developed by Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino
(2008) was used in its entirety, but modified to fit the research
context and experiences of research administrators in this academic
medical center. For example, the word unit was replaced with department
or division, and other qualifiers were added to keep respondents'
focus on their subunit within this academic medical center. A question
added to the Information Transfer characteristics expanded
'learning from' to include general central offices responsible
for research compliance areas within the institution. The survey also
added five demographic questions about work area, tenure and sex.
The researcher transcribed the survey using online REDCap software
and obtained an exemption from the Institutional Review Board. Next, the
researcher emailed requests to 240 research administrators at a large,
private academic medical center. These research administrators included
those from both clinical and non-clinical departments, divisions, and
central offices. In the recruitment email, respondents were asked to
forward the message to other research administrators within the
organization. More than 160 surveys were started and 121 were fully
completed over nine data collection days, for a response rate of
approximately 50%: it is unknown how many respondents received the
initial request and how many responded through snowball sampling. A
reminder email was sent on day seven to all of the 240 original
recipients. Data from REDCap were exported into SPSS 17.0 and recoded as
appropriate.
Survey respondents were mostly female (84.3%), which closely
resembles Shambrook and Brawman-Mintzer's (2006) occupational
survey of research administrators, in which 83% of respondents were
female. The greatest number of respondents identified themselves as
working in a clinical department (49%), which is to be expected in an
academic medical center. The balance of respondents came from
non-clinical departments (29%) and central offices (22%). Sixty-three
percent of respondents had worked in their department or division for
three or more years, 93% of whom had been in their current position
within the same department or division for three or more years. Overall,
82% of respondents had worked at this academic medical center for three
or more years, with 43.8% having 10 or more years of experience in
research administration at this academic medical center. These findings
are also consistent with Shambrook and Brawman-Mintzer's (2006)
sample, in which 40% of respondents had more than 10 years of experience
in research administration.
Dependent variables were derived from survey questions, as modified
from the original Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) LO tool. Criteria
were ranked from 1 to 7; high scores correspond to a greater degree of
LO. In this medical center, items with high mean scores included:
sharing information about what works and what does not work (5.5),
people's interest in doing things in better ways (5.6),
'aluing education and training (5.5), and making time for education
and training activities (5.5). Items with low mean scores included:
differences of opinion (3.2), valuing opinions outside the norm (3.3),
and experiencing low levels of stress (3.1). Median scores for all 56
dependent variables were within one point of the mean score: most varied
less than 0.5 point. The largest variability was in information
collected on those we serve (0.8) and providing education and training
to experienced employees (0.9). The standard deviation for all variables
was less than 2.0:66 percent of variation among responses was clustered
tightly around the mean.
Following from Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008), items were
grouped by building block and characteristic to test their reliability
as scales for the characteristic. Of 13 scales, 12 had Cronbach's
Alpha greater than .70 (see Table 1), indicating strong reliability. The
remaining scale had Cronbach's Alpha of .66, which suggests that
the scale is just below the threshold of acceptance. On this particular
scale, one question in the survey (handling differences of opinion
publically rather than offline) appears to have reduced the internal
reliability. Omitting this variable would increase the reliability of
the scale: however, for the purposes of comparison to the original
benchmark data from Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008), the scale has
been included as originally defined and is deemed to be substantively
significant.
Data Analysis
Compiled building block characteristic scales were tabulated for
comparison to benchmark findings from Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008)
to answer the first research question. Their benchmark scores were
"derived from surveys of large groups of senior executives in a
variety of industries" (p. 114). To convert a scale to a score, the
raw scores for the scale were multiplied by 100. divided by the number
of points on the scale and then divided by the number of questions in
the scale. Table 2 compares scores from this academic medical center
with benchmark scores from Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino). Scale means
were next grouped by demographic features, such as department type,
tenure and sex of the respondent, and compared to median benchmark
scores to answer the second and third research questions.
Results
Question 1:
In addressing the first research question, which asks the extent to
which the research enterprise within the academic medical center is seen
as a learning organization by research administrators, Table 2 compares
mean scores from this study to original benchmark scores developed by
Garvin, Edmondson and Gino. Eleven of 12 scales from this large, private
academic medical center fall below median benchmark scores, with three
scales falling into the bottom quartile of the benchmark scales. With a
scaled mean of 60 (out of 100), the Time for Reflection scale (including
items that measure whether or not the organization reviews its work,
invests in improvement and reflects on past action) was the only scale
on which the research enterprise within the medical center scored higher
than the benchmark. This suggests that the academic medical center does
take time to review its processes and evaluate how work is going.
Three scales fell in the bottom quartile: Information Collection
(mean of 65.4), Openness to New Ideas (mean of 74.7) and Appreciation of
Differences (50.0). The Information Collection scale measures whether or
not the unit collects information on customers, competitors, economic
and social trends, and whether or not it compares itself to other
departments and divisions both inside and outside the institution. The
Appreciation of Differences scale measures how open the department or
division is to differences of opinion and alternative ways of doing
work. As mentioned earlier, one question to assess whether differences
of opinion are addressed publicly or in private likely reduced the score
on this scale to the lowest quartile. The Openness to New Ideas scale is
related to the Appreciation of Differences scale: together they indicate
a supportive learning environment in the first building block of the LO.
The mean score for the Openness to New Ideas scale is higher than other
scores from this institution (74.7), but this scale also has the highest
benchmark median score (90). A high score on this scale suggests that an
institution values new ideas and doing things in new and better ways,
and is not resistant to untried approaches. While this scale is actually
the highest of the mean scaled scores for the academic medical
center--dovetailing with the median benchmark score--it is still well
below the benchmark score for this scale.
Question 2:
The second research question asked if the degree to which research
administrators see the academic medical center as a learning
organization varies by department type within the research enterprise.
Table 3 compares the mean scores from this study by department type to
the original benchmark scores, as well as to each other. Survey
respondents indicated their department type as central office, clinical
department or non-clinical department. Of these three department types,
those responding from central offices had seven of the highest mean
scores across the 12 scales. Clinical departments had eight of the
lowest mean scores; however all scaled means were basically the same
when reduced to the original values, indicating limited variability by
department type. This also suggests a consensus on the perception of the
institution as a learning organization. Three scaled means for central
office respondents were above the median benchmark score from the
original Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) study, including the Time
for Reflection (67.3), Information Transfer (74.1) and Leadership that
Reinforces Learning (76.7) scales. The mean scaled score for Time for
Reflection was 17.3 points above the median for the central office, 7.6
points above the median for non-clinical departments and 10.4 points
above the median for non-clinical departments. For the Appreciation of
Differences and Information Collection scales, all three department
types fell well below the median score. The greatest disparity, however,
was for the central office on the Openness to New Ideas scale, which
fell 20.3 points below the median. By the overall numbers, the central
office is clearly closer to the median benchmark: however, the tight
clustering of scores indicates that all three areas of emphasis are
relatively similar in their perceptions of the learning community within
the institution.
Question 3.
Tables 4 to 6 address the third research question, which asks if
the degree to which research administrators see the academic medical
center as a learning organization varies based on sex or tenure in the
unit, in the position, or at the medical center. The survey included
five possible answers to questions, including less than a year, one to
three years, three to five years, five to ten years and more than 10
years. These categories were created by the researcher arbitrarily
because the extant literature on research administration does not
identify typical tenure lengths, thus analysis of the tenure variables
structured in this way did not yield any noteworthy findings; however,
when they were computed to show tenure as either less than five years or
more than five years, slight differences were observed. Employees who
have been in their role, department or division or at the institution
for more than five years had higher scaled scores overall. When grouped
by tenure, no group has a scaled mean higher than the benchmark median
score. For those scores below the median benchmark, none had a variance
of nine or more points below the median benchmark. Tenure does appear to
have an impact on the perception of a learning organization; however,
tenure does not explain the institution's mean scaled score
variance from the median benchmark scores.
Table 7 compares the mean scaled scores from this study with the
benchmark score by sex. With higher scaled means on nine of 12 scales,
female respondents were more likely to see the institution as a learning
organization; however, like tenure and department type, scores are very
similar, and, when reduced, are tightly configured. In comparing the
scores by gender, some scale scores are quite close, such as Education
and Training with a difference of 0.3: however, the variation is more
pronounced in other scales. Female respondents scored 6.9 points higher
on the Information Collection scale than males and 6.2 points higher
than males on the Leadership that Reinforces Learning scale. In
comparing the mean scaled score by gender to the benchmark scores, only
the Time for Reflection scale is above the median, with females 11.2
points above the median and males 7.2 points below the median. Mean
scaled scores for males were well below the median on the Information
Collection (-20.4) and Openness to New Ideas (-17.7). Although there are
differences between the males and females, these differences do little
to explain the overall mean scaled scores and their relationship to the
median benchmark scores.
Discussion & Conclusion
This study utilized an existing tool designed to measure the extent
to which an organization has the characteristics of a learning
organization. The tool has been used across business sectors, and was
adapted for this study in a large, private academic medical center and,
more specifically, to the role of the research administrator in that
setting. Results suggest that the academic medical center is an LO, but
not a very strong one when compared to the benchmark set by the original
Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino (2008) study. This paper discusses many
areas where adjustments should be made, especially in the areas of
information collection and the cultivation of a supportive learning
environment to strengthen this LO; however, conversations should be held
to address ways by which the institution can increase scores across all
three building blocks and the 12 scaled scores.
This study is not without shortcomings and limitations; it did not
use a random sample, but instead contains individuals who were known to
the researcher and who self-selected to complete the survey; however,
respondents' answers were anonymous. It is also a single-site study
with no existing similar institution benchmark; however, as more
institutions complete the survey, benchmarks will evolve to enable
relative comparisons. Although the response rate for the survey was
approximately 50 percent and was representative, these results were not
compared against institutional employment records. The data presented in
this study do provide a good indication of respondents' perception
of the LO at their institution.
In his call for university-wide organizational reform, Tierney
(1999) writes that "all too often, faculty, staff, and
administrators in a college or university have no sense of whom they
serve or what they do, other than meeting demands that someone else has
placed on them" (p. 124). To overcome this, he suggests a top-down
communication of the norms, rules and values of the organization as well
as engagement in knowledge building "and applying it in
culturally-specific ways for the organization" (p. 127). The tool
used in this study revealed that, although this academic medical center
is an LO, key leaders may still benefit from a dialogue within the
institution to discuss ways that it can foster knowledge sharing,
collecting information, appreciating differences of opinion, making time
for education and training activities, and reducing stress levels. It is
a starting place for institutional improvement.
The LO instrument and benchmark scales are not only helpful to
assess the extent to which an institution is a learning organization,
but also to identify opportunities for improvement and to allow leaders
to address problems or areas where their institutions lag behind. In the
large, private academic medical center in this study, nearly every scale
fell below the median benchmark score, thus there are likely areas for
improvement in the development and maintenance of the research
enterprise of this organization as an LO. Garvin, Edmondson. and Gino
(2008) identified four principles organizations can use to foster
organizational learning, all of which may be relevant to the research
enterprise in an academic medical center:
1. Install "formal learning processes" (p. 116) and
cultivate a learning climate, which goes beyond the academic medical
center's leadership modeling the learning behaviors.
2. A "one-size-fits-all strategy for building a learning
organization is unlikely to be successful" (p. 116).
3. The value of the scores is in their comparisons to other similar
institutions or the benchmark scores. On their own, they are just
scores.
4. There are many paths to becoming an LO and maintaining the
learning community, and not every organization is the same. Institutions
should "be thoughtful when selecting the levers of change and
should think broadly about the available options" (p. 116).
The results of this exploratory study may be helpful in examining
the perceptions of research administrators on the academic medical
center as LO. This study and others like it will likely become more
helpful as additional institutions complete the survey and begin to
compare results. The core recommendation is to continue research on
academic medical centers as LOs by first collecting more data from
public and private academic medical centers, and then to look to
non-academic medical centers, and nonmedical academic research centers
to see what distinctions can be made and what can be learned about these
organizations as additional comparisons and contrasts are made.
Author's Note
The author acknowledges support from the Vanderbilt Institute for
Clinical and Translational Research grant (5ULI RR024975 from NIH/NCRR)
in the development and deployment of the survey tool and partial
analysis of the data. This article was previously submitted to the 2010
Research Symposium of the Society of Research Administrators
International in Chicago, Il.
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Sam C. Gannon, MA, MCRP, EdD
Peabody College of Vanderbilt University
PMB #414
230 Appleton Place
Nashville, TN 37203-5721
Tel: 615/322-3359
Email: sam.gannon @ vanderbilt.edu
Table 1. Dependent Variable Scales
Variables * Mean Max
Building Block 1: Supportive Learning
Environment
Psychological Safety Scale 5 25.9 35
Appreciation of Differences Scale 4 17.8 28
Openness to New Ideas Scale 4 20.9 28
Time for Reflection Scale 5 21.2 35
Building Block 2: Concrete Learning
Processes and Practices
Psychological Safety Scale 4 16.0 28
Appreciation of Differences Scale 6 27.4 42
Openness to New Ideas Scale 5 22.9 35
Time for Reflection Scale 6 30.6 42
Psychological Safety Scale 9 43.1 63
Building Block 3: Leadership that
Reinforces Behavior
Leadership that Reinforces Behavior 8 31.3 40
Alpha
Building Block 1: Supportive Learning
Environment
Psychological Safety Scale .816
Appreciation of Differences Scale .663
Openness to New Ideas Scale .856
Time for Reflection Scale .867
Building Block 2: Concrete Learning
Processes and Practices
Psychological Safety Scale .760
Appreciation of Differences Scale .831
Openness to New Ideas Scale .786
Time for Reflection Scale .918
Psychological Safety Scale .815
Building Block 3: Leadership that
Reinforces Behavior
Leadership that Reinforces Behavior .924
* Variables for Buildine Blocks 1 and 2 contains 7-item questions
while variables for Building Block 3 contains 5-item questions
Table 2. Comparison of Mean Scale Scores to Benchmark Scales Scores
Benchmark Scaled
Score
Building Blocks and Their Mean Scale Bottom Second
Subcomponents Scores Quartile Quartile
Supportive Learning Environment
Psychological Safety 74.0 31-66 67-75
Appreciation of Differences * 50.0 14-56 57-63
Openness to New Ideas 74.7 38-80 81-89
Time for Reflection 60.6 14-35 36-49
Learning Environment Composite 65.2 31-61 62-70
Concrete Learning Processes and
Practices
Experimentation 57.1 18-53 54-70
Information Collection 65.4 23-70 71-79
Analysis 65.6 19-56 57-70
Education and Training 72.9 26-58 69-79
Information Transfer 68.5 34-60 61-70
Learning Processes Composite 66.8 31-62 63-73
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 73.4 33-66 67-75
Benchmark Scaled Score
Building Blocks and Their Median Third Top
Subcomponents Score Quartile Quartile
Supportive Learning Environment
Psychological Safety 76 77-86 87-100
Appreciation of Differences * 64 65-79 80-100
Openness to New Ideas 90 91-95 96-100
Time for Reflection 50 51-64 65-100
Learning Environment Composite 71 72-79 80-90
Concrete Learning Processes and
Practices
Experimentation 71 72-82 83-100
Information Collection 80 81-89 90-100
Analysis 71 72-86 87-100
Education and Training 80 81-89 90-100
Information Transfer 71 72-84 85-100
Learning Processes Composite 74 75-82 83-97
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 76 77-82 83-100
* This scale is not statistically significant (alpha=0.66)
Table 3. Comparison of Means for Department Type to Benchmark
Scales Scores
Building Blocks and Their Subcomponents Median
Mean Scale Benchmark
Scores Score
Supportive Learning Environment
Psychological Safety 74.0 76
Appreciation of Differences * 50.0 64
Openness to New Ideas 74.7 90
Time for Reflection 60.6 50
Learning Environment Composite 65.2 71
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Experimentation 57.1 71
Information Collection 65.4 80
Analysis 65.6 71
Education and Training 72.9 80
Information Transfer 68.5 71
Learning Processes Composite 66.8 74
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 73.4 76
Building Blocks and Their Subcomponents
Central Non-Clinical
Office Department
Supportive Learning Environment
Psychological Safety 74.8 74.0
Appreciation of Differences * 47.3 52.6
Openness to New Ideas 69.7 77.4
Time for Reflection 67.3 57.6
Learning Environment Composite 65.4 64.7
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Experimentation 55.1 58.0
Information Collection 65.4 66.6
Analysis 70.2 64.6
Education and Training 75.6 72.3
Information Transfer 74.1 66.6
Learning Processes Composite 69.5 66.2
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 76.7 71.3
Clinical
Department
Supportive Learning Environment
Psychological Safety 73.3
Appreciation of Differences * 50.1
Openness to New Ideas 74.0
Time for Reflection 60.4
Learning Environment Composite 65.4
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Experimentation 57.2
Information Collection 63.4
Analysis 63.9
Education and Training 71.9
Information Transfer 67.5
Learning Processes Composite 65.6
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 74.5
* This scale is not statistically significant (alpha=0.66)
Table 4. Comparison of Means for Tenure in the Department or Division
to Benchmark Scales Scores
Building Blocks and Their Subcomponents Mean Scale Median
Scores Benchmark
Score
Supportive Learning Environment
Learning Environment Composite 65.2 71
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Learning Processes Composite 66.8 74
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 73.4 76
Building Blocks and Their Subcomponents Less than 5 5 or More
Years Tenure Tenure
Years
Supportive Learning Environment
Learning Environment Composite 63.9 67.0
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Learning Processes Composite 65.4 68.5
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 72.6 74.5
* This scale is not statistically significant (alpha=0.66)
Table 5. Comparison of Means for Tenure in that Role to
Benchmark Scales Scores
Median
Building Blocks and Their Subcomponents Mean Scale Benchmark
Scores Score
Supportive Learning Environment
Learning Environment Composite 65.2 71
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Learning Processes Composite 66.8 74
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 73.4 76
Building Blocks and Their Subcomponents Less than 5 5 or More
Years Tenure Years
Tenure
Supportive Learning Environment
Learning Environment Composite 64.3 67.2
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Learning Processes Composite 65.7 69.0
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 73.5 73.3
Table 6. Comparison of Means for Tenure at the Institution
to Benchmark Scales Scores
Building Blocks and Their Subcomponents Median
Mean Scale Benchmark
Scores Score
Supportive Learning Environment
Learning Environment Composite 65.2 71
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Learning Processes Composite 66.8 74
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 73.4 76
Building Blocks and Their Subcomponents
Less than 5 5 or More
Years Tenure Years
Tenure
Supportive Learning Environment
Learning Environment Composite 64.0 65.9
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Learning Processes Composite 65.7 67.4
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 72.2 74.1
Table 7. Comparison of Means for Gender to Benchmark Scales Scores
Median
Building Blocks and Tnelr Subcomponents Mean Scale Benchmark
Scores Score
Supportive Learning Environment
Psychological Safety 74.0 76
Appreciation of Differences * 50.0 64
Openness to New Ideas 74.7 90
Time for Reflection 60.6 50
Learning Environment Composite 65.2 71
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Experimentation 57.1 71
Information Collection 65.4 80
Analysis 65.6 71
Education and Training 72.9 80
Information Transfer 68.5 71
Learning Processes Composite 66.8 74
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 73.4 76
Building Blocks and Tnelr Subcomponents Female Male
Supportive Learning Environment
Psychological Safety 74.7 70.0
Appreciation of Differences * 50.1 53.5
Openness to New Ideas 75.1 72.3
Time for Reflection 61.2 57.2
Learning Environment Composite 65.6 63.3
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Experimentation 56.4 60.9
Information Collection 66.5 59.6
Analysis 66.3 62.2
Education and Training 72.9 73.1
Information Transfer 68.9 66.7
Learning Processes Composite 67.1 65.0
Leadership that Reinforces Learning
Composite for this Block 74.4 68.2
* This scale is not statistically significant (alpha=0.66)