Kurt Richter's Dissertation

Kurt Richter has developed his dissertation on the topic of systemic change with an emphasis on leadership and the learning process in the context of district-level systemic change. Using formative research methodology (Reigeluth & Frick, 1999), Richter sought to identify areas for improvement of a design theory for systemic change called The Guidance System for Transforming Education (GSTE).

Specifically, Richter investigated the application of the GSTE in the middle stages of the systemic transformation process with a Leadership Team of 20-25 stakeholders in a public school district that consists of 5,954 students in a semi-urban, Midwestern setting. The researcher worked as a co-facilitator in the systemic transformation process, and he studied the processes of team learning and of decision making while creating a Framework of Vision, Mission, and Beliefs to guide a transformation effort.

Emphasizing the significance of leaders’ role in the context of any change, Richter focused on critical learnings, decisions, and observations made by Leadership Team members between the time of the team’s creation through the completion of the Framework of Vision, Mission, and Beliefs. The nature of formative study includes finding ways to improve the existing theories, or the process of changes. In this sense, Richter outlined three research questions;

• Research Question 1: How can the decision making process and the learning process best be integrated so that both are accomplished most effectively and efficiently in the early stages of a Leadership Team (or Decisioning Team)?
• Research Question 2: What elements of the observed process used by the Leadership Team worked well?
• Research Question 3: What elements of the observed process used by the Leadership Team did not work well?

In response to these questions, he provided a detailed analysis of the context as well as process he underwent in hopes of providing useful ways, just like a handbook for school district change. I find this dissertation helpful in a sense that it tells me the questions I would start with, similar method I would employ, and related literature that I overlooked in the past.