Regional Educational Strategic PDF Download

The primary purpose of this study was to develop a strategic planning model to guide regional technical education centers in the development of a strategic plan for programmatic change. Business and industry have been successful in responding to continuous change in a global economy by using strategic planning processes. Therefore, strategic planning models used in business and industry and public and nonprofit organizations were studied and adapted for use by regional technical education centers. The secondary purpose of this study was to implement the model in a regional technical education center. This purpose was essential to determine the effectiveness of the model in the preparation of a summary report to be compared with advisory committee minutes and the host district's long range plan. The model was implemented using qualitative research methods to collect, assemble, and analyze the data. Five focus groups of regional technical education center stakeholders were conducted by a professional moderator. The focus group proceedings were tape recorded, transcripted and processed through Ethnograph v4.0 for the preparation of a strategic planning summary report. The major findings of the study were: (1) The strategic planning model generated enough previously known and unknown data to develop a strategic summary report describing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, external and internal analyses, and recommendations. (2) The uses of a professional moderator, a moderator's guide and questions, an information overview, Ethnograph v4.0 software, and stakeholder focus groups were effective components of the strategic planning model. (3) The quality of the information collected and the high percentage of stakeholders with prior experience in strategic or long-range planning indicated appropriate categories of stakeholders were selected to participate.