MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School

Certificate for Approving the Dissertation

We hereby approve the Dissertation

of

VICKA D’LYNN BELL-ROBINSON

Candidate for the Degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

______Dr. Kathleen Knight Abowitz, Director

______Dr. Andrew Saultz, Reader

______Dr. Mahauganee Shaw, Reader

______Dr. Amity Noltemeyer, Graduate School Representative

ABSTRACT

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-EFFICACY AND AMONG COLLEGE STUDENT ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERS: A MIXED- METHODS STUDY

by

Vicka D. Bell-Robinson

This research project explores two very different constructs, self-efficacy and organizational dissent. Self-efficacy is the belief that one has in one’s ability to control or influence the events that occur in one’s life (Bandura, 1997). Dissent is communication of disagreement with the majority opinion or a specific individual who has more power than the individual communicating dissent (Stitzlein, 2014). Specifically, this project sought to answer three research questions: (1) what is the correlation between an individual’s level of self-efficacy and an individual’s in offering an opinion that is contrary (i.e. dissent) to a person in authority or the majority sentiment? Assuming that there is a correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent; (2) does the correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent differ based upon which role (president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, etc.) a participant holds in their student ?; and (3) does with dissenting in one space correspond with one’s expression of dissent in a variety of different contexts? Two previously vetted and validated instruments were used to determine the relationship between self-efficacy and organizational dissent. The Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), developed by Schwarzer and Jerusalem in 1995 was used to measure generalized self-efficacy. The Organizational Dissent Scale (ODS), developed by Kassing in 1998 was used to measure the expression of organizational dissent. Kassing identified that people may express dissent in three different ways: (1) articulated, to someone in the organization who holds more authority; (2) antagonistic, to someone in the organization who holds the same amount of authority; and (3) displaced, to someone outside of the organization. Through the use of both quantitative and qualitative research methods, it was determined that there is a negative correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent. More specifically, for a majority of participants in the study, the negative correlation existed between generalized self-efficacy and organizational dissent, as well as generalized self- efficacy and articulated or upward dissent. An investigation into the result revealed that the correlation was not consistent among student organizational leaders. While organizational presidents, treasurers, and general members maintained the negative correlation, vice presidents, secretaries, and committee members did not. Furthermore, organizational participants who identified themselves as members of the “other” category demonstrated a negative correlation between generalized self-efficacy and antagonistic dissent. Lastly, through interviews with participants, it was determined that the expression of organizational dissent in one context does inform and impact the expression of dissent outside of the organization and vice versa.

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-EFFICACY AND DISSENT AMONG COLLEGE STUDENT ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERS: A MIXED- METHODS STUDY

A DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of

Miami University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Educational Leadership

by

Vicka D. Bell-Robinson

The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio

2016

Dissertation Director: Dr. Kathleen Knight Abowitz

©

Vicka D’Lynn Bell-Robinson

2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES iv

DEDICATION v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 Why it Matters 2 Dissent 3 Self-Efficacy 4 Present Study 6

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 8 and Dissent 8 Dissent on College Campuses 17 The Role of Self in Dissent 24 Self-Efficacy and Dissent 31

CHAPTER III: METHOD AND METHODOLOGIES 34 Quantitative Procedures 35 Measurement Instruments 39 Procedures for Statistical Analysis 41 Qualitative Procedures 43 Ethical Considerations 46 Limitations 47

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS 48 Results for Research Question #1 49 Results for Research Question #2 61 Results for Research Question #3 71 Conclusion 82

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSIONS, LIMITATIONS, FUTURE RESEARCH 85 Discussion of the Results 86 Variation on the Correlation across Organizational Positions 88 Dissent in Different Situations 91 College Student Dissent across Campuses 92 Implications for College Educators 94 Implications for Organizational Leaders 97 Limitations and Future Research Opportunities 99 Conclusion 101

APPENDIX 102

iii A: Informed Consent for Survey 103 B: Student Organization Participation Survey 105 C: Informed Consent for Interview 113 D: Interview Questions 115

REFERENCES 117

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Types of Student 37

Table 3.2 Demographic Characteristics of Participants 38

Table 3.3 Semesters at the Institution and Primary Organizations 39

Table 3.4 Explanation of Organizational Positions 42

Table 3.5 Demographic Information about the Interview Participants 44

Table 4.1 Means and Standard Deviations for Each Instrument 49

Table 4.2 Means and Standard Deviations for Expressions of Dissent 49

Table 4.3 Bivariate Correlation Results for Generalized Self-Efficacy and Various forms of Expression of Organizational Dissent 51

Table 4.4 Means and Standard Deviations for Seven Organizational Positions and Four Measures of Dissent 62

Table 4.5 Summary of Kruskal-Wallis Results 63 Table 4.6 Summary of Bivariate Correlation Results by Organizational Position 65

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DEDICATION

To my grandparents, Samuel D. Bell, Jr., Bobbie D. Bell, German D. Smith, and Ruby R. Smith: Thank you for instilling in our a work ethic and perseverance that made achieving this level of education possible, even though and circumstance prevented you from having the same opportunity.

To my parents, William D. Bell, Sr. and Vicka F. Bell: Thank you for sending me to good schools, kicking my butt when necessary, and your continuous love and support. Also dad, thank you for demonstrating self-efficacy when you changed your educational track from vocational education to college prep; that decision forever changed the way our family views higher education.

To my husband Frank and children, Juliana, Olivia, and Elijah: We did this together! Thank you for putting up with me as worked through the Ph.D. program and completed this dissertation. While this is a wonderful accomplishment, it is a mere shadow to the constant joy which radiates into my life because of you.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When I spoke to Dr. Denise Taliaferro Baszile about the Educational Leadership (EDL) program at Miami University, she told me that if I was going to purse this venture, I was going to need to communicate to my family that “we were all getting a PhD.” She made it clear that no one gets through this experience alone and that if I was going to be successful, I would need a strong community around me. To that end, I have been fortunate to be surrounded by people who have walked with me throughout this entire experience. First and always I must acknowledge the presence of the Lord God throughout this process. God kept me sustained through late night writing sessions, moments of frustration with statistical software, and the death of my sister, Elesa, who is unfortunately viewing my accomplishment from above. I have been asked how I have managed to balance the requirements associated with this degree while managing all of my other responsibilities. Like all good things in my life, it is not I, but Christ through me that made this possible. I have also been enormously fortunate to have a loving and supporting husband, Frank Robinson, as well as our three children: Juliana, Olivia, and Elijah who never gave me too much grief about weeknight classes, weekend quarantines to the dining room for writing, and hiding in various locations of the house to read. They did this while keeping me connected and grounded to the world around me and the people who matter most. I have also had great support from my parents, William D. Bell, Sr. and Vicka F. Bell, who surrounded me with educational enrichment opportunities that fostered the love of learning which I enjoy today. I also appreciate the support provided by my in-laws Charlie F. and Dr. Patrice Robinson. I also want to acknowledge the members of the Office of Residence Life, led by my , Jerry Olson. Jerry has been a tremendous support throughout this entire experience. He permitted me to leave work early to attend classes, loaned me a book or two from his extensive library, and even proof-read some of my papers. In addition to Jerry, the support of my colleagues Robert Abowitz, Tresa Barlage Zianno, Jelene Grace, Sasha Masoomi, Kyleen Ammerman, Victoria Suttmiller, Grant Walters, Joe Hawkins, Sarah Meaney, and Rick Lofgren was terrific. It was also beneficial to have colleagues undergoing similar academic experiences, and for that I thank Timothy Staples, Erik Sorensen, Crystal White, Colleen Bunn, and Jamie Workman. Nestled between my colleagues from work and various faculty members, I had the privilege to be surrounded by a group of people who, in one way or another, provided advice, friendship, and support along the way. Special thanks to William Bell, Jr., Julie Bell, Darian Williams, Michael Williams, Kathy Jicinsky, Andrea Bakker, JS Bragg, Chloé Bolyard, Ann Marie Klotz, Shimina Harris, Sung A Alcantara, Valerie Robinson, Deb Heard, Johnnie Jackson, Tiffany Williams, Yvania Garcia-Pusateri, Terri Thomas, Heather Bisher, Alisa McKinney, Tela Bayamna, Rayshawn Eastman, Amy Baldridge, Kelly Waldrop, Shamika Karkari, Wilson Okello, Patrick Stenger, Violet Stenger, Kelly

vii Benjey, Adam Benjey, Elizabeth “Buffy” Stoll-Turton, Jayne Brownell, Gwen Fears, Jaymee Lewis-Flenaugh, Heather Christman, Addison Bell, and Ashley Ferguson. I also want to thank the nearly 600 students whose participation in my survey allowed for initial analysis of the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent. Special thanks to Cece, Alan, Amber, and Sarah, the four students who shared their stories and their lives with me. I really enjoyed getting to know them throughout the interview process. Additionally, thanks to the Miami University Graduate School for funding a portion of the project, so I did not have to bear the burden of all of the costs. Of course this experience would not be complete without the support of the fabulous faculty and staff in the Department of Educational Leadership and Division of Education Health and Society whom I was blessed to experience in coursework or conversation: Mrs. Cindie Ulreich, Dr. Michael Dantley, Dr. Denise Taliaferro Baszile, Dr. Richard Quantz, Dr. Molly Moorehead, Dr. Peter Magolda, Dr. Bill Boone, Dr. Judy Rogers, Dr. Jason Abbitt, Dr. Michael Evans, Dr. Karen Beard, Dr. Kate Rousmaniere, Dr. Sally Lloyd, Dr. Aimin Wang, and from the Farmer School of Business and Division of Student Affairs, Dr. Mike Curme. Notable mention as well to Dr. Sarah Stitzlein from the University of Cincinnati whose chance visit to my Democracy in Education class, where she talked about teaching students to dissent, sparked my interest and began my journey with this topic. I was fortunate to work with some faculty members more closely than others through the final stages of my experience in the program. My comprehensive exam committee consisted of Dr. Lisa Weems, Dr. Tom Poetter, Dr. Mahauganee Shaw, Dr. Amity Noltemeyer, and Dr. Kathleen Knight Abowitz. This committee offered constructive critique and challenges which ensured that I entered the proposal phase focused on and confident about my study. My dissertation committee consisted of Dr. Mahauganee Shaw, Dr. Amity Noltemeyer, Dr. Kathleen Knight Abowitz, and Dr. Andrew Saultz; this committee provided ongoing support and suggestions for my project. They were always willing to meet with me at a moment’s notice and they read whatever I sent to them. I felt truly lucky to have each of these people by my side in the final stages. This experience would not have been possible without the ongoing support from my advisor and chair, Dr. Kathleen Knight Abowitz. Kathleen partnered with me through not only the dissertation, but every other step of the way in the program. We survived my sister’s sudden death, the time I thought I was going to fail statistics, and what will forever be known as the comprehensive exam experience. From day one of the program, Kathleen permitted me to drag her to lunch, show up without notice to her office, and otherwise pester her about my next steps. She did this in addition to teaching, writing her own research, mothering teenagers, and chairing the department; for that I am truly appreciative. My gratitude to everyone who has played a role in this experience runs deep. Thank you to everyone above and as well as the countless students, teachers, classmates, church members, family members, friends, mentors, and associates who are not mentioned, but played a role, whether small or large, in my educational journey up to this point.

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I have heard that most educational and social science research is really “mesearch.” In “mesearch” researchers notice something about themselves, their friends and family members, or their environments, and begin to wonder why the phenomena exist. While this project is not really specific to me, as I have reflected on my experiences, I have been able to find a connection between my scholarship and my life. When pressed to think about the constructs of self-efficacy and dissent and how I have seen them enacted in my life, I recall a memory from the fourth grade. I attended a mostly White, mostly Catholic elementary school. I noticed fairly early on that I was one of a few African American students. The size of the school was so small that there was only one class per grade level. Since most of the students in attendance started in first grade and continued until eighth grade graduation, any sign of a new student was extremely exhilarating. We could normally tell when there were potentially new students because they would visit before their official first day. One day in 1987, two students, twins, came to visit. Unlike other students who had joined our community mid-year, these twins were African American. The teacher brought them to the door and showed them the classroom. Once the teacher and new students were out of sight, several of my classmates started to laugh, snicker, and otherwise respond in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. I piped up and said “Just because they are Black doesn’t mean anything.” About the same time that this occurred, the teacher reentered and was none too pleased with the class. She too had sensed that something was amiss and was angry to learn, through my comment, that she was correct. I remember being enormously upset, her comforting me in the hallway and attempting to, using all the that she could muster, explain diversity and inclusion while affirming my identity. This now 29 year old hallway conversation was one of the most profound learning experiences that I had as a student. It was real, it was spontaneous, and it happened not as some formal part of the curriculum, but because I dissented. I dissented against my mostly White counterparts. Though I did not have the language to talk about diversity and inclusion, nor the social capital to compel others to listen, I did have my voice and my conscience and that made all the difference.

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Experiencing something so self-defining at such a young age influenced my view of the world as well as my assumptions about the actions of others. I lived most of my life, up until recently, assuming that everyone believed in their capacity to make an impact using their voice. As I have gotten older, I have noticed that people generally choose not to voice their opinions when they represent a different view point than that held by either a perceived majority or someone in a position of formal or informal authority. I have noticed the presence of this lack of dissent in a variety of adult interactions and scenarios including at work, church, and in volunteer organizations. The lack of dissent in adult interactions in public and community spaces became more noticeable to me when I was introduced to the importance of intentionally teaching students how to effectively participate in dissent (Stitzlein, 2014) in one of my graduate courses. In addition, I had recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s (2008) Outliers, which made the argument that practice and experience are necessary in order for people to achieve and accomplish greatness. All of these ideas began to roll around in my head and I somehow stumbled upon Albert Bandura’s (1997) construct of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the belief individuals have in their actions to positively affect their outcomes. One key feature of how people develop self-efficacy is through previous experience. I began to wonder if there was a relationship between one’s willingness to dissent and one’s level of self-efficacy. Why it Matters There are a number of reasons why it is important to understand how people develop the capacity and willingness to dissent. One of the major reasons people choose not to dissent is because of the intense indoctrination they receive about fitting in with others. They are socialized from a very early age to fit in and go along with the will of the group. The aim to go unnoticed and cause as little trouble as possible certainly has many benefits. Without some rules, guidelines, and expectations, it would be difficult for the basic functions of society to get accomplished. For example, what would the streets be like if drivers just created their own rules? How would money be raised to build schools and perform other public works if there were not guidelines that established a tax system and people just paid whenever they wanted? How would people reconcile the difficulty of knowing what food from the grocery store was okay to eat if there were no regulations stipulating what could be considered safe for consumption? There are

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definitely advantages to having a common of our world and to having shared expectations of one another. It is worth noting that shared assumptions are not necessarily shared by everyone, and not all people view the world in the same way. Expectations of behavior are frequently dictated by a majority group, which is by virtue of being the majority, not inclusive of different voices or less dominant groups. The excluded viewpoints and voices may be detrimental to the majority if they are filled with hate, disdain, or , which by way of their exclusion minimizes the negative impact that they can have on the greater good. At the same time, when marginalized and underrepresented viewpoints and perspectives which seek fairness and inclusion are silenced, the result can be a perpetuation of inequity and injustice. When fitting in, going with the flow, and getting along with the majority causes the loss of civil rights and liberties for others, then someone must be willing to disrupt the established systems in the pursuit of justice. There is no need to perform a thorough check of historical facts to find instances of when people outside of the majority disagreed or made a fuss in order to bring about productive change in their communities and the world around them. History books are filled with examples of people who dissented against the majority and were successful in changing the course of the country. Jane Addams, Mother Theresa, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are all credited with believing in an espoused of justice and sacrificing their comfort and security to achieve it. Without the actions of people who were willing to stand against the majority and other power structures to advocate for enfranchisement of women, care for the poor, and civil rights for African Americans, perhaps the progress that has been made would have been delayed or not accomplished at all. Dissent Societies and organizations need people who are willing and able to disagree with those in power or stand against the majority opinion in order to grow and develop into better systems (Shiffrin, 1999; Stitzlein, 2014; Sunstein, 2003). People choose to dissent for a variety of different reasons, including helping those in power understand how their actions may be potentially problematic, or advocating for change or a different approach to current practices. While dissent is frequently thought of as an active or aggressive political concept, one need not hold a protest sign or participate in a sit-in in order to be participating in dissent. For example, Goodboy (2011) explained that students frequently engage in dissent within the context of their

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educational experiences in classes through the use of instructional dissent. Some of the reasons why students engage in dissent are because of: (1) unfair testing and assignments; (2) unfair grading practices; (3) poor teaching; and/or (4) a breach of the syllabus. This size and scope of the dissent does not dictate the importance of dissent for the dissenter. Students who participate in instructional dissent are willing to challenge the normalcy and acceptability of the instructor, who holds power over the student; this fact aligns them well with their counterparts who are dissenting against larger and more systemic issues. Students spend most of their time in spaces where there is no formal leader. In instances where no one holds formal authority, students dissent against the majority sentiment. This dissent might occur in interactions with their friend group, peer co-workers, or members of their student organization. Throughout the book Rebels in Groups: Dissent Deviance, Difference, and Defiance (2011), several authors (Packer; Nemeth and Goncola; Jetten & Hornsey) articulated various reasons why individuals within groups choose to participate in dissent. Those reasons include a lack of respect or care for the group, deep concern and respect for the group, moral grounding, desire to express uniqueness, as well as the potential to obtain tangible rewards. From the vantage point of someone who is not immediately connected to the context in which the dissent is occurring, it might seem that the dissenter is risking very little by going against the majority sentiment. This low may be more likely perceived when the topic seems unimportant (i.e., what people to allow into the organization or where organizational funding should be spent) or the solution is obvious. It is not the perceived level of risk that dictates whether an action is dissent, but rather the act of disagreeing with the majority opinions. Participation in dissent within the context of a group, regardless of the magnitude of the dissent or size of the group, could have potential negative consequences for the dissenter, including loss of both ease of future participation and positive relationships with other members (Kassing, 2011). Self-Efficacy The definition of self-efficacy used in this study was originally used by Albert Bandura in 1979 (Bandura, 1997). Bandura articulated that self-efficacy is the belief that people have in their ability to control or influence the events that occur in their lives. Bandura (1997) went on to explain that there are four ways that individuals come to have self-efficacy within their lives and environment. The first way is through previous successful completion of a similar task in the

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past. The second way is through vicarious experiences. In vicarious experiences, someone similar to the person has been successful in doing the task that the person is attempting to complete, and thus the person’s belief that the person can complete it is made stronger. The third way self-efficacy is formed is through verbal . In the verbal persuasion component, individuals believe they can do something because others convince them they can. The final way that self-efficacy develops is through individual psychological or affect. Regardless of what others say, whether someone else has done something similar, or if the person has previously completed the task, the person is confident in the ability to complete the task. Self-efficacy, confidence, and self-esteem. Though a fairly well-used and well-researched construct, self-efficacy tends to be a more academic term than self-esteem and confidence. Self-efficacy, self-esteem, and confidence are not synonyms and should not be used interchangeably. What they do have in common is the fact that they each focus on a level of belief. As mentioned above, self-efficacy is the belief individuals hold about the impact their actions can have on desired outcomes. This does not mean that people will be successful in whatever they are trying to achieve, but rather, is about the level of belief they have regarding their likelihood of attainment. Moreover, the construct of self-efficacy is task-related. I might have high self-efficacy as teacher and researcher, but very little self-efficacy in resolving a conflict amongst my peers. It is understandable that confidence and self-efficacy are confused with one another because the association that confidence has with the concept of belief. Someone can have a strong belief or confidence that something is going to fail miserably, which is a major difference between self-efficacy and confidence. Bandura (1997) tackled the difference between self- efficacy and confidence in way that is worth noting at length: Confidence is a nondescript term that refers to strength of belief but does not necessarily specify what the certainty is about. I can be supremely confident that I will fail at an endeavor. Perceived self-efficacy refers to belief in one's agentive capabilities that one can produce given levels of attainment. A self-efficacy assessment, therefore, includes both an affirmation of a capability level and the strength of that belief (p. 392). Another major difference between confidence and self-efficacy is that one can hold confidence for another person, but cannot hold self-efficacy for another person. For example, I can be confident in the ability for my husband to select appropriate attire for my children to wear to

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school, but if he does not possess a high-level of self-efficacy around that task, the strength of my belief (confidence) in him does not matter. Self-esteem is the overall belief that individuals hold about their worth as a person. People with low self-esteem do not believe they have high value as human beings. Self-esteem, unlike self-efficacy, is sustained over multiple situations regardless of environment, task, and outcome. There may be instances when people with low self-esteem actually outperform another person, but because their overall feeling of worth is low, they are not likely to believe that their accomplishment was sufficient enough. Likewise people with high self-esteem do not view the level of their self-efficacy on a particular task as indicative of their overall self-worth. The Present Study This project, which is environmentally set in the United States of America, specifically focuses on exploring the relationship between the constructs of self-efficacy and dissent. Since self-efficacy is best studied in a specific context (Bandura, 1997); the subject group has to have enough similarities to be compared to one another, but also enough potential differences to make the research interesting. For this reason, I have chosen to look at the relationship between self- efficacy and dissent through the lens of undergraduate students’ student organizational participation. More specifically, my research questions are: 1. What is the correlation between an individual’s level of self-efficacy and an individual’s experiences in expressing an opinion that is contrary (i.e., dissent) to a person in authority or the majority sentiment? Hypothesis 1a: There is a statistically significant positive correlation between a participant’s level of self-efficacy and expression of organizational dissent. 2. Does the correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent differ based upon which role (president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, etc.) participants hold in their student organizations? Hypothesis 2a: The role an individual has in an organization does not impact the correlation that exists between self-efficacy and dissent. 3. Does experience with dissenting in one space correspond with one’s willingness to dissent in another? Hypothesis 3a: Participants will be able to describe how their engagement in dissent is demonstrated inside and outside of their primary student organizations.

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I explore this question using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. To measure self-efficacy, I use the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale. This instrument, developed by Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1995), is composed of 10 items that assess the extent to which people believe that they can accomplish tasks and overcome adversity. To measure dissent, I use the Organizational Dissent Scale (ODS). This instrument was developed in 1998 by Jeffrey Kassing to measure the expression of organizational dissent. It is composed of 24 survey questions. The questions are divided into three factors which focus on three different types of expression of organizational dissent: articulated, displaced, and antagonistic. The qualitative approach is accomplished through a series of three individual interviews with 4 participants who represent the larger sample. The first interview focuses on the participants’ self-efficacy, the second on the participants’ participation in dissenting against the majority, and the final on how the participants have experienced self-efficacy and the expression of dissent during their time as a student organizational member, both inside and outside of the organization.

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CHAPTER II:

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

This research project explores two very different constructs: self-efficacy and dissent. Although the research on both self-efficacy and the research on dissent are robust, there is very little currently written about the relationship between the two. As the literature will reveal, the topics of self-efficacy and dissent are contextually bound, but exist across a variety of contexts. For the purposes of this study, I will be specifically focusing on the relationship between the level of one’s self-efficacy and one’s expression of dissent in the context of undergraduate college student organizations. In an effort to provide some context about the college student population who is participating in this study, I will also briefly review relevant literature related to college student development as well as college student dissent. Conformity and Dissent To truly understand the notion of dissent, it is important to consider the concept of conformity. As human beings, a vast majority of us are born into groups that have established norms and values. Whether we are the first born child or the last of 20 children, when we enter the world, we enter into a home where others have developed rules, regulations, and procedures. These rules may be related to when meals are eaten, what church is attended, or what time the lights go off at night. Many of these early rules are designed to keep us safe as well as to indoctrinate and induct us into the larger group. Conformity through Schooling In addition to the home, the induction of the young to the larger society happens in a variety of other places. These lessons in what is commonly accepted begin with media messages on the internet, television, and radio, as well as in books and magazines which employ imagery. Children are socialized to conform through family rituals, church obligations, and schooling (Quantz, O’Conner, and Magolda, 2011). One function of the early public school system was to indoctrinate attendees in expectations of effective citizenship (Wexler, 2009). In Life in Classrooms, Jackson (1990) described how common classroom practices promoted community through conformity. A close read of the book reveals how the structure of the school day, organization of the classroom, and the ordinary procedures surrounding permission seeking (i.e., going to the bathroom) worked together to ensure that students learned

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more than just reading, writing, and arithmetic; they also gained a thorough understanding of how they were expected to behave as members of a larger group; enacting what Eisner (1994) called the hidden curriculum. These expectations established through schooling in its origins now weave generations of students together in order to provide an effective definition of citizenry, one that privileges the dominant group and the current way the dominant group operates. Our early exposure to conformity has enormously profound effects on how we operate within the world. More recently, a 2016 article titled Homeschooling, Socialization, and the New : The Not-So-Hidden Agenda of Public Education by B.K. Marcus discussed the assumed role that public schooling has in the socialization of children into society. Marcus explains that in the early 20th century schooling in the United States became less about intellect and more about integrating individuals into the larger group. Conforming in adult life. The willingness of someone to conform to the ideas of those in power was initially discovered through a now infamous psychological experiment performed by Stanley Milgram in 1974 (Cherry, 2008). In Milgram’s experiment, he recruited participants who were assigned the role of “teacher” to provide questions to another participant, assigned the role of “student”. If the “student” answered questions incorrectly, the “teacher” was to administer an electric shock, which increased in strength with each incorrect answer. The electric shocks ranged from 30 volts of electricity all the way to 450 volts. The switches controlling the level of electric shock were labeled from moderate to severe, with the high labels being noted with an XXX symbol. Also, the participant administering the shock was given an initial shock of his own in order to give the participant a sense of how the shock would feel to the recipient. The recruited participants were under the impression that the “student” answering questions were ordinary participants, with no prior relationship to Milgram or others involved in the design of the experiment. In fact, the “students” were confederates who were following a script which involved purposely providing incorrect answers as well as other talking points. Parts of the script entailed that the “student” confederate receiving the shock complain about a heart condition, ask to stop the experiment, and eventually refuse to answer questions (Cherry, 2008). For the participant’s part, he was told that he needed to continue with the experiment regardless of the response from the student. An early hypothesis of the experiment predicted that 3% of “teacher” participants would continue to administer electric shocks for incorrect answers

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after hearing resistance, discomfort, or silence from the student. The reality is that of the 40 “teachers” that took part in the study, 65% delivered the highest shock to the “student” participants. Many continued with the experiment despite their own personal discomfort with the instructions provided by the researcher as well as their own moral dilemma about the of the project (Cherry, 2008). While the Milgram experiment confirmed that conformity can be compelled through the use of authority, individuals also have the propensity to align themselves with others even when there is no power differential. Solomon Asch discovered that people were willing to ignore their own opinion when deciding which two lines matched each other in length. After intentionally identifying the two matching lines twice in a row, the confederates purposely selected two lines that did not match as being the correct answer. Although it was obviously clear the group was wrong, the subject went along with the confederates in selecting the wrong answer 29% of the time (Sunstein, 2003). Sunstein (2003) noted that “when the subject knows that conformity or deviation will be easily identified, he will be more likely to conform” (p.20). The general socialization of the citizenry to citizenship compels individuals to align themselves with others; this is a lesson that has been enforced since the founding of the United States. Like many countries in the world, the United States was heavily impacted by colonialism. One could even say that our obsession with groups as well as with conformity was birthed through colonialism. The colonization of Native Americans to British rule firmly established the concept of insiders and outsiders. Loomba (2005) outlined some of the actions colonists took in order to permanently imprint their practices and customs onto the overpowered native people. These actions, although most predominantly connected to economic domination, also sought to reshape those that had been conquered into people who more closely resembled the colonizers. Young (1990) explained how Native Americans were simultaneously granted citizenship and required to assimilate in the early 1920s. This assimilation included forbidding native students, who were forced to attend boarding schools, from speaking in native tongue and practicing traditional rituals. The goal of this was to eradicate the identifiable characteristics that distinguished Native Americans from their colonizers. Early social theorist Emile Durkheim viewed education as a way to create a common moral code and solidarity. He asserted that schools had the ability to serve the function of

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socializing the citizenry to the dominant points of view in society (Wexler, 2009). While historically education was primarily designed to teach specific curricular content to students, Durkheim and Parsons posited that schools also implicitly communicated expectations related to certain norms and values (Wexler, 2009). Similarly, Eisner (1994) acknowledged that there were parts of the curriculum that were formal and obvious, like reading, writing, and math, as well as other topics that were more implicit or “hidden”, such as rituals designed to produce competitiveness and compliant behavior. The pressure to assimilate or face or extermination is deeply woven into the fabric of the United States. Although the Native Americans served as the first example of being forced to conform to dominant culture, other groups followed. Regardless of whether the groups came to the United States under their own will or were forced here through the slave trade, once here, assimilation and conformity to the colonizing group was important to survival. Given this history, it is no wonder that a vast majority of individuals conform to the majority or people in positions of power as opposed to voicing their dissent. More closely related to this study, college students also experience moral dilemmas about whether to go along with the majority and/or those holding more power, or to speak up when they disagree with something. The quantitative portion of this study gives students the opportunity to disclose the frequency with which they communicate their disagreement or dissent with the decisions or direction of their student organizations. A lack of willingness to conform is what leads to dissent. Participating in dissent is an active choice which causes dissenters to lose the comfort and protection of the majority (Jetten & Hornsey, 2011). There is no need to participate in dissent if there is no pressure to align with the majority or agree with those in power. The instances in which neither individual nor group power exists are few and far between, which makes the potential for dissent almost always present. Organizational citizenship. Conformity happens in the greater society and within our , but it also happens in the context of the organizations of which we are members. Behaviors that are both functional for and favorable to the organization are called Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB). Early research identified OCB as voluntary actions that exceed positional role requirements (Graham, 1991). These behaviors are divided into three groups: organizational obedience (following the rules and procedure of the organization), organizational loyalty (actions designed to present the

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organization in the best light possible), and organizational participation (full and responsible involvement in organizational governance). OCB are characterized by increased innovation, improved team performance, and increased organizational commitment (Reynolds, Shoss, & Jundt, 2015). Good organizational citizens demonstrate characteristics of all three OCB groups. They understand the purpose of processes and structures, they promote the positive aspects of the organization, and they are willing to voice dissent in order to make certain that other organizational members do not fall into simply agreeing with each other which could result in decisions that are disastrous or undermine the mission of the organization (Graham, 1991). Dissent as a challenge to power and conformity. Blind compliance happens in organizations because of the way that people are socialized to believe that conformity is natural and intuitive. Based on the socialization, to participate in dissent can feel counterintuitive because it frequently positions the dissenter against the majority or those in power. Dissent is a more political word than disagreement. No one expects that everyone agrees all of the time; having disagreements among friends, coworkers, family members and others is frequently viewed as a part of life. Dissent is not a word that is used very frequently by everyday people. We normally hear the word dissent associated with U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The majority opinion is the one that dictates the future legal actions of the country. The dissenting opinion articulates the rationale for why the majority opinion was incorrect and or short-sighted. The dissenting opinion does not change the outcome of the majority decision, but rather gives voice to a perspective that would otherwise be missing. One of the reasons why dissent is viewed as a more political term than disagreement is because of its connection to the construct of power. Sarah Stitzlein (2014) referred to dissent as “when a citizen openly disagrees with the mainstream sentiments or the dictates of those in power” (p.53). There is certainly power that exists because of positional authority, but there is also power that exists within the comfort and context of the majority or the mainstream. Nemeth & Goncola (2011) posited that many people assume the majority is right because so many people are in agreement. They went on to explain that people who communicate a different opinion than the majority of the group become a target of the majority as its members work to convince dissenters that the majority is correct. People who are participating in dissent are attempting to overcome their weaker voice or role and change the reality of the current situation. Many

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theorists who study power posit that power is the ability to shape the reality of others (Bolman & Deal, 2008; Foucault, 1982; Hoy & Miskel, 2013; Morgan, 2006). Power exists in many forms including control of knowledge and resources, symbolism and the of meaning, and formal authority (Morgan, 2006). Within the concept of formal authority there are different types. Hoy and Miskel (2013) outlined three different types of authority (bureaucratic, traditional, and charismatic) and their relationship to power. Bureaucratic authority operates through the use of rules and guidelines. Traditional authority is the type of power people associate with the person who has the highest position in the organizational . With charismatic authority, leaders are granted power by way of an extraordinary personality. Regardless of what type of power or authority exists, dissenters attempt to reshape the image of reality that current power holders are putting forth. Desired outcomes of dissent. According to Sarah Stitzlein (2014), there are four potential outcomes dissenters are trying to accomplish. The first outcome of dissent is to provide a different perspective on both current and historical events. A person who participates in this type of dissension is not necessarily motivated by personal gain, yet wants to share an unrepresented viewpoint. The second outcome of dissent is to raise awareness on a topic or issue that would otherwise be ignored with the goal of building a supportive base. The third outcome of dissent is aimed at taking action designed to change the status quo. The final outcome of dissent is to help allies and partners who are also dissenting stay committed to their endeavor. Unlike the other three types of dissent, the final type of dissent is focused on motivating the minority group, rather than persuading the majority to understand the concerns and adjust the status quo. Sunstein (2003) explained that it is important for all people to engage with others who do not share their viewpoint, but also highlighted benefits associated with being surrounded by one’s compatriots as well. These benefits include the desire to strengthen commitment to the cause so that people stay invested in pushing for change. Good versus bad dissent. Dissent is frequently associated with being argumentative or disagreeable. This association is understandable because dissenters are generally challenging what no one else is challenging and proposing what no one else is envisioning. That being said, not all dissent is good dissent (Shiffrin, 1999; Stitzlein, 2014; Sunstein, 2003). Craig (2014) explained that there

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are two types of dissent: loyal and disloyal. During loyal dissent, the dissenter strives to work with leaders to improve practices, , and the status quo. Disloyal dissenters act out of a desire to undermine authority and wreak havoc. Stitzlein (2014) also described characteristics of good and bad dissent: “Good dissenters pursue justice and truths that will work for all members of a community and will lead to flourishing lives” (p. 68). On the other hand, bad dissenters tend to be cynical. Cynicism does not belong within the confines of good dissent because cynics lack a belief in the potential for progress. Good dissenters have hope that progress and change are possible, which is part of why they are motivated to communicate their perspective in the first place. It is fair to critique the view that some dissent is good and other dissent is bad. After all, one cannot help but ask the question “Who gets to decide what is good dissent and what is bad dissent?” Normally, those holding power are among the decision makers to determine dissent that is good and dissent that is bad. It is natural to assume that power holders benefit from not being challenged or dissented against and therefore would automatically view all dissent as bad. Those who have researched dissent (Craig, 2014; Garner, 2009; Kassing, 2011; Kassing et al., 2012; Nemeth & Goncola, 2011; Shiffrin, 1999; Stitzlein, 2014; Sunstein, 2003) understand the desire of people in the majority as well as those who hold power to avoid or squash dissent. The purpose of their work is to illuminate the importance of dissent and encourage leaders and others who are most likely to be dissented against to welcome its presence in society at large as well as in smaller organizations and systems. Pathways to organizational dissent. There are many approaches dissenters may take in order to communicate their dissent. Kassing (2011) identified that people may express dissent in three different ways: (1) articulated; (2) antagonistic; and (3) displaced. In articulated dissent, dissenters attempt to communicate with a supervisor or someone who holds more power than the dissenter. The articulated way of dissenting is commonly associated with someone’s desire to help improve the organization and remain a member of the community. Unlike articulated dissent, antagonistic dissenters seek to communicate their dissent to peers or colleagues who hold the same amount of power as the dissenter. People who participate in antagonistic dissent may just be trying to vent their displeasure, as opposed to making real change. Kassing et al. (2012) also found that antagonistic dissenters are more likely to leave the organization than their counterparts who participate in

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articulated dissent. Lastly, dissenters who participate in displaced dissent communicate their concerns to people outside the environment. Sometimes people who participate in displaced dissent are seeking a space to vent about their experience, but it is also possible that a displaced dissenter is seeking advice on how to negotiate the situation. Of the three pathways to dissent, antagonistic dissent is the most negative and has the potential to have similar characteristics as bad dissent. It is difficult to determine the of those who participate in antagonistic dissent. One the one hand, those participating in antagonistic dissent may not be pursuing justice and truth for the good of everyone involved. One the other hand, antagonistic dissent may be an effective way to build coalitions in order to garner support for needed change. In addition to choosing where to communicate their dissent, dissenters also have to consider how they will communicate their dissent. Garner (2009) outlined eleven ways that people may convey their message about dissent: ingratiation; direct-factual appeals; exchange; circumvention; coalitions; pressure; inspiration; repetition; threatening ; solution presentation; venting; asking for information; and humor. Since many of these messages are self- explanatory, I will only go into more detail about a few: inspiration, coalitions, and ingratiation. When people use inspiration, they utilize values and morals to engender support for their political position. This approach is similar to what Bolman and Deal (2008) called the symbolic frame. A dissenter using this frame may use stories or lore to convince decision makers to alter their actions. The use of coalitions provides a dissenter the opportunity to utilize others as helpers to convey a message or get a point across. Diversity and Complexity (2010) author Scott Page discussed the notion of “cross-cutting cleavages” as a means to produce results that would otherwise not be possible. People who work together are more likely to be successful at accomplishing their goal than people who work alone. The romantic notion of a lone dissenter is frequently perpetuated by inaccurate depictions of history via our school systems and textbooks (Brighouse, 2006; Loewen, 2006). One of our countries greatest dissenters, Harriet Tubman, would have not accomplished what she accomplished without the help of the Underground Railroad. Likewise, the actions of Rosa Parks would not have produced the Montgomery Bus Boycott and thus the Civil Rights movement if there had not been support from a larger group (Brighouse, 2006).

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When people use ingratiation to convey their point, they attempt to manipulate the decision maker into agreeing with their perspective and change the course. Garner (2009) went so far as to say that people who use ingratiation begin “pretending to let the other person make the decision” (p. 200). While some might argue that ingratiation is unethical, others might see it as an appropriate use of charismatic authority (Hoy & Miskel, 2013). Regardless of the means that dissenters use to attempt to convey their messages and influence power holders, there is potential for the experience to be stressful (Craig, 2014). Kassing (2011) explained that dissenters must consider the consequences of their choice to dissent. These consequences can include the loss of comfort, connections, and . It is also important to remember that in certain circumstances the cost of challenging currently acceptable practices could be one’s life (Shiffrin, 1999; Stitzlein, 2014; Sunstein, 2003). Benefits of dissent for organizations. In addition to dissention having a productive place in society, organizations also benefit from the presence of people who have the ability to offer a different opinion than the one that is being supported by the majority. People holding the majority perspective have the benefit of assuming they are right (Nemeth & Goncola, 2011). Without the presence of dissenters, this assumption goes unchallenged. Even if the majority is correct, participation in the act of having to think about actions and decisions from multiple perspectives has the potential to make the decision made by the majority stronger (Nemeth & Goncola, 2011). Dissenters benefit organizations by encouraging and innovation (Nemeth & Goncola, 2011). Although this reality is known by many, the ease in which one is allowed to dissent within the context of an organization occurs only under a few circumstances. One circumstance in which organizational members are more likely to permit dissent is when there is a shift in group membership (Rink & Ellemers, 2011). The exit of veteran members and the inclusion of new members, particularly those who are viewed as different from the current membership, can create an environment in which groups and organizations may be more susceptible and open to dissent by the new member. Rink and Ellemers (2011) also found that groups and organizations who view themselves as weak or failing tend to be more open to different opinions and innovative ideas from newcomers than their more stable or successful counterparts.

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Dissent on College Campuses College students in the United States have been participating in coordinated dissent since the early 1800s (Pietrofesa & Van Hoose, 1970). As time has passed, the world has changed along with how college student dissent appears on campus. Most of the literature about student dissent surrounds on campus protests and other movements that happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Student dissent was focused both locally against rules and procedures regarding campus dress codes, disciplinary actions, and curriculum and on larger global issues including race relations, poverty, and foreign affairs. More specifically, the occurrence of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement led college students to engage in acts of dissent against their parents, their institutions, and their government (Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1971; Morgan and Wicas, 1972; Pietrofesa & Van Hoose, 1970). While there were a lot of students participating in dissent in high schools and on college campuses during this era, not every student was directly involved (Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1971; Pietrofesa & Van Hoose, 1970). Pietrofesa and Van Hoose (1970) explained that most of the students who were actively participating in dissent on campus tended to hold economic and educational privileges; that is to say that their parents were likely college graduates who were financially wealthy. Students who were either first generation college students or were financially disadvantaged did not engage in dissident activities at the same rate as their more wealthy peers. This variation should be viewed as of the different amounts of time each student group had to engage in dissent versus each groups’ level of commitment. Students who were inducted into the college scene through the vicarious experiences of their parents and who had their college education paid for could primarily focus on their role as scholars and activist. Students who were learning about college on their own and/or had to ensure that they had enough funding to continue, needed to split their attention amongst a variety of different tasks which left less time for them to participate in dissenting activities. Black students and other marginalized groups did participate in campus protest activities, but not at the same rate as their wealthy White counterparts. The dissent enacted by college students in the late 1960s took many campuses by surprise, since the preceding generation of students was perceived to be uninvolved and apathetic towards civic engagement (Pietrofesa and Van Hoose, 1970). Students also had to fight the belief that because of their age and lack of lived experiences, they did not have the capacity to dissent,

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nor had they earned that right. Stitzlein (2014) explained that although the expression of dissent was a foundational component of the establishment of the United States, there was early concern over who had the right to express dissent. Many people thought that acts of dissent were dangerous in the hands of people believed to be intellectually inferior (Stitzlein, 2014). Of course, the people reasoned themselves to be superior to whomever the “inferior” group happened to be at the time. In the 1960s and 1970s, college students were thought to be intellectually inferior and thus were victims of the same kind of thinking that permeated early colonialism. The belief that students were unsophisticated in their understanding of the world resulted in campus and political leaders ignoring student concerns. The lack of response from campus administrators and faculty members caused an increase in the intensity level of dissent from the student body, resulting in more public and disruptive means, including “demonstrations, sit-ins, [and] sit downs” (Pietrofesa and Van Hoose, 1970, p. 396). This increased intensity eventually got the attention of both high school and college educational leaders. A perceived reduced need for student dissent. The events of the late 1960s and early 1970s left campuses reeling and exhausted. Though there were still very major issues at play in the U.S. and the larger world, student activism and dissent subsided. One potential cause of the reduction in college student activism was the anticipated end to the Vietnam War. According to Altbach (1997), the largest portions of student dissenters were dissenting against the Vietnam War, motivated in part because they were the most impacted by the ongoing draft. When it became evident that the war would end, students lost the motivation to continue to protest against U.S. occupation. Another major reason for the reduction in college student activism and dissent may have been the 1971 passing and ratification of 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 (Kaplan & Lee, 1995). With the ratification came the ability for students to dissent using the ballot box as opposed to their previously exercised means of protesting on campus. In addition to a change in the legal voting age, other laws also impacted student life on college campuses. More specifically, Title VI of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and Title IX of the Educational Amendments in 1972 prohibited race and sex discrimination by public and private institutions receiving federal funds (Kaplan & Lee, 1995). Given the mandates, colleges recognized the need to provide a less hostile collegiate experience for students from marginalized backgrounds, including Black students and women. The adjustment in access as

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well as campus climate resulted in more college students who held first generation, lower socioeconomic, and/or student of color statuses being present on campuses (Altbach, 1997). Since wealthy, white, second or third generation college students were the group of students most likely to participate in campus dissent (Pietrofesa & Van Hoose, 1970), a lower percentage of those students on campus likely reduced the percentage of students participating in major dissenting initiatives (Altbach, 1997). In addition to a more multiracial campus, students also had some success getting campus concerns and issues addressed. Another legal ramification came through the 1961 decision in Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education which mandated that institutional disciplinary procedures have due process safeguards for students. Through the Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education decision, schools were required to develop new procedures designed to ensure that students would receive notice of pending disciplinary actions and be granted a hearing in which they could defend themselves and attempt to avoid automatic suspension and expulsion. Furthermore, the Buckley amendment produced the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which resulted in students gaining control of their academic and judicial records. This meant that their parents and future employers no longer had automatic access to student records without the student’s expressed permission (Kaplan & Lee, 1995). In addition to legal mandates, many campuses also followed the recommendation in the Carnegie Commission (1971) to make a more sincere effort to address student concerns. Campus victories for students included being granted more liberties in terms of residence hall visitation policies as well as having more academic offerings around subjects related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Upon seeing and feeling the progress of the student dissent movements, college students seemed to shift their attention to other interests. Through the creation of student organizations that centered on sports, crafts, and other hobbies, students were able to engage in the college campus and get to know other students within the context of topics that were apolitical (Bok, 2006). Student organizations also changed from ones that focused on environmental and societal issues like race, war, and gender, to ones which were designed to help students be financially profitable in their lives after college (Altbach, 1997).

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The changing face of student dissent. While some scholars attribute the decline in student activism to a growing lack of personal connection to the issues (Zukin, 2006), there is ample evidence that students continue to participate in dissent, though it looks very different from the activism that college campuses witnessed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Goodboy (2011) posited that college students actively engage in dissent within the context of their educational experiences in classes through the use of instructional dissent. Some of the reasons students engage in dissent is the of: (1) unfair testing and assignments; (2) unfair grading practices; (3) poor teaching; and/or (4) a breach of the syllabus. When students choose to dissent, they demonstrate participation in instructional dissent in three ways: expressive, rhetorical, and vengeful (Goodboy, 2011). According to Goodboy (2011), when students participate in expressive dissent, they are not actually aiming to resolve their dissent by changing the current situation. They participate in dissent in order to soothe their internal feelings of dissonance, find support, or vent to classmates. Finding support may be especially necessary when students are not performing well academically and need a way to assuage the discomfort they are feeling. They want to “express” their frustration, but may not ever seek to communicate their frustration to a power holder (i.e. the instructor); especially if they know that their level of success or lack thereof is a result of their own behaviors (Goodboy, 2011). Unlike expressive dissenters, rhetorical dissenters aim to get the instructor to either adjust his or her behavior or at the very least acknowledge the presence of a different viewpoint. The use of rhetorical dissent aligns with a desired outcome of dissent communicated by Stitzlein (2014), as aiming to provide a different viewpoint on phenomena than is currently understood or seen by those in power. Stitzlein (2014) went on to explain that dissenters may address a need for change in the status quo by providing alternative commentary on a present state of affairs. People who dissent with the intent of providing alternative commentary are not necessarily motivated by personal gain (Stitzlein, 2014). Students who participate in rhetorical dissent communicate their dissent to a person or a group of people who hold the power to enact change (Goodboy, 2011). In most cases, the power holder is the instructor, though students may seek out a department chair or dean in order to get their voices heard. The use of rhetorical dissent mirrors Kassing’s (2011) use of articulated dissent in that in both cases the dissenter tries to work with the power holder to resolve the situation.

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The final type of dissent present in instructional dissent is vengeful dissent. In vengeful dissent, the student’s purpose is to ruin the reputation of the instructor. Students participating in this type of dissent are likely to talk to anyone other than the instructor who is willing to listen to the students’ negative experience. A student might participate in vengeful dissent in order to: (1) help other students avoid having a similar negative experience; (2) get the person in trouble or fired for their poor performance; and/or (3) attempt to reestablish their power in the classroom when it is perceived to have been unnecessarily captured (Goodboy, 2011). The use of vengeful dissent is similar, though not identical, to the expression of antagonistic or displaced dissent communicated by Kassing in 1998. People participating in antagonistic dissent, displaced dissent, and vengeful dissent do not focus their dissent only on authority figures, but also communicate it to others who do not have the power to address the concern. Social media and dissent. I was stunned by both the lack of scholarly literature about the use of social media to express dissent by college students, and a general lack of information about any type of social media usage. Most of the literature found on dissent and social media revealed the use of social media for the purposes of expressing dissent and revolution in Iran, Egypt, and other various countries (Christiansen, 2011; Schleifer, 2011; Shaer, 2011). During the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century, both Egypt and Iran experienced extreme unrest as well as a fundamental shift in their political systems. Dissenters utilized social media to raise awareness about their concerns to the broader world, attempt to change the status quo, and encourage continued involvement in the movement (Christiansen, 2011). More locally, I was able to discover an article in the fall 2014 edition of The Crisis Magazine sponsored by the National Association of Colored People (NAACP). The article titled Tweet This by David Leonard discussed the ways in which Black college students used social media to not only share their experiences on predominately White campuses, but also to voice their disappointment in the lack of institutional support aimed at fostering a climate of inclusion and diversity. “Noting their tuition dollars, their usefulness in campus recruitment, their value on athletic fields, and the emptiness of rhetoric, Black student activists have spotlighted the hypocrisy of today’s universities. They demand to be heard, to see change” (Leonard, 2014, p. 20). Leonard went on to specifically highlight social media campaigns at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Each of

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these campaigns was somewhat effective in bringing attention to the topic at hand and, in some cases, producing results from the administration. More specifically, the YouTube video campaign coordinated by men of African descent at UCLA produced a petition as well as several marches demanding an improvement of the recruitment and retention of African American students and other supportive actions (Leonard, 2014). The University of Michigan campaign “Being Black at Michigan” #BBUM, which was a response to an incident of intolerance involving a theme party depicting negative stereotypes of African Americans, resulted in increased funding for the Black Student Union, an expansion of recruitment efforts focused on students of color, and the creation of a scholarship for undocumented students, as well as the development of a fund designed to raise money for a much needed renovation of the campus multicultural center (Leonard, 2014). Leonard (2014) also pointed out that student activism on college campuses is not limited to the use of social media or about topics specifically associated with being Black on a predominately White campus. College students have responded to recent external events associated with racial profiling and discrimination, including the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, and several others. In many of these cases, the people accused of killing these young men were eventually cleared by the judicial system and did not serve any significant amount of time in prison. Students, along with many others, reacted to each of these outcomes by participating in protests and other demonstrations designed to bring attention to these situations, so that they would not go unnoticed and unchallenged. In the late fall of 2015, just prior to the beginning of the qualitative portion of this study, a graduate student at the University of Missouri, Jonathan Butler, began a hunger strike to demand the resignation of the University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe. Jonathan Butler decided that a hunger strike was the last resort after other actions, including marching in protest, meeting with various campus constituencies, and gathering signatures on petitions about the presence of racism on campus, were met with repeated unsatisfactory responses by university administrators. Jonathan’s hunger strike lasted eight days, during which his act garnered support from the University of Missouri faculty assembly, student government, and football team. The president’s resignation came after the football team announced that they would go on strike and not play or practice until the president resigned. The football team’s decree caused additional

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media coverage and caught the attention of the Missouri Governor who insisted that something be done; shortly thereafter, the president resigned (Schuppe, 2015). The current and incoming generations of college students seem to be open to participating in dissent on campus. A 2016 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education noted that college freshman who entered college in the fall of 2015 reported that they were more likely to participate in campus protest than students in the past five decades (Kueppers, 2016). According to the article, the recent racial unrest has motivated students to participate in campus activism. In the American Norms National Freshman Fall 2015 Survey, 16% of Black students said that they were likely to participate in college protests. Although Black students make up the largest percentage of students who said they would participate, the anticipation of protesting on campus was higher among the other racial groups as well. Although there has clearly been some recent evidence of college students participating in dissent beyond instructional dissent, the numbers of those students, as in the past, has been very small compared to the size of the current college student population. Whether it has been the result of a shaky economy, shifting national priorities, or just plain apathy, college students have been mostly uninvolved in significant national and global dissent initiatives at the same level as the 1960’s and 1970’s. Instead students have focused their attention on establishing financial stability and securing a comfortable future. It will be interesting to see how long the recent increase of college student dissention around national and global issues lasts. The timing of these recent college protests alongside my research study begs the question of why some students participate in dissent while others sit idly by continuing with their regular lives. Earlier research revealed socioeconomic and educational differences between students who chose to participate in dissent and students who did not, but it did not answer or thoroughly explore the role that one’s psyche plays into one’s willingness to dissent. Most of the current literature regarding dissent on college campuses focuses on individualized instructional dissent. The present study does not focus on student dissent against macro systematic inequalities or on micro individual student dissent against instructors, instead this study sits between the aforementioned concepts, looking specifically at how students participate in dissent within a student-run organization of which they are members.

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The Role of Self in Dissent The beginning of this literature review introduced the notion of conformity before moving on to review the literature around dissent. This is because the concepts of conformity and dissent are deeply connected: without a majority opinion or status quo there is no need for a minority or dissenting opinion. In addition to being connected to the notion of conformity, dissent is also connected to the concept of self. As mentioned earlier, human beings are socialized into communities that have values, norms, and rules. Much of what human beings learn about society is gathered by watching and mimicking others. Communities within schools, churches, and other organizations assist in acclimating individuals to the roles they are expected to play, including being obedient and non-combative. For some people, this early socialization created an almost innate desire to conform in order to get along with others (Sunstein, 2003). It is extraordinarily difficult for individuals to articulate dissent if they have never recognized the possibility of separating themselves from the group. People must become conscious of their ability to divorce themselves from the actions and decisions of others in order to participate in dissent. Human Development Robert Kegan (1994) posited that humans experience a five-step evolution of consciousness. In the first and second stages, during very early childhood, children become aware of the idea that objects in the environment are independent from themselves. Within the final stage, reached sometime after age 40, individuals begin to understand themselves and others as interconnected. Evidence that one is approaching the final stage is provided through the stage just prior called “self-authoring mind.” In this stage, people establish their own values and ideologies as separate from others. Marcia Baxter Magolda (2001) built upon Kegan’s fourth phase by delving deeply into the concept of self-authorship. Baxter Magolda (2001) described self-authorship as made up of four distinctive phases. The first phase is defined as the ability for one to look inward to one’s self in order to identify beliefs and determine actions. In the first phase, individuals participate in a journey forward by following others and doing what others have established as the plan action; this phase has a high level of conformity. During the second phase, individuals begin to recognize that the values and plans stipulated by others may not actually align with their own personal desires. The third phase brings with it a desire to choose and defend one’s own actions and beliefs, even in the face of

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opposition. This phase more than the others creates space for the capacity to participate in dissent. The final phase, labeled “internal foundation”, grounds people’s identities and beliefs in themselves, not to the absence of other influences, but with a higher level of value being placed on their own thoughts and plans than the thoughts and plans of others. Dissent does not happen without the development of self. If someone is defining their actions based upon the beliefs and values of others, it is very difficult for them to then challenge the ideas of that same group. Typically, even those individuals who are initially opposed to an idea, can, if outnumbered, be convinced to follow the lead of the majority. Sunstein (2003) found conformity more likely to occur if the topic at hand is not foundational to the person’s identity. It is no wonder that people who do not have a firm sense of self do not dissent. My study focuses on college student experiences with dissent because most of the other current literature around dissent beyond instructional dissent does not look at the college student experience. In fact, the lack of literature surrounding the dissenting practices of college students may signal low participation in dissent among college students. If students should be dissenting more than they currently are, their student statuses provide an opportunity for faculty, administrators, and leadership educators to intervene. These interventions, both informal through conversation and organized through events and activities, could inform students about the importance of dissent as well as provide them with a pathway toward self-efficacy in this area. Society needs dissenters (Shiffrin, 1999; Sunstein, 2003; Stitzlein, 2014).Without intentional focus on the development of self-efficacy in the specific context of dissent, the number people who participate in dissent when they disagree could shrink. Since most of the social movements that have produced real change and progress in the United States (U.S.) have been born out of dissent, it is unclear how the lack of dissenters will impact society. Today’s college students, like the college students before them, are destined to touch school boards, city councils, Congress, and other large decision making entities; if they do not know how or are not willing to participate in dissent, it is likely that the current unjust practices in an already inequitable system will continue to persist. Self-Efficacy versus Self Authorship Self-efficacy is the belief that people hold about the control that they have pertaining to a specific set of circumstances (Bandura, 1997). One of the major differences between self- efficacy and self-authorship (Kegan, 1994; Baxter Magolda, 2001) is that self-efficacy is not

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sustained over multiple situations. People might have high self-efficacy, meaning that they believe they can accomplish and/or control the outcome of the task in one area (cooking a meal), but may completely lack self-efficacy in another (finishing a basement). Since authorship is the underlining component of human development, it is sustained over multiple situations, despite the introduction of new challenges and scenarios. Another major difference between self-efficacy and self-authorship is the reliance and consideration of other’s thoughts about one’s ability. Under self-authorship, individuals are expected to move from a dependence on information provided by others to a more internal voice (Baxter Magolda, 2001). A person’s self-efficacy can be influenced through the inclusion of others’ opinions about whatever task or situation the person is trying to negotiate. I will speak more about this after an introduction to the construct of agency which is closely related to the notion of self-efficacy. Agency. Human agency is characterized by four components: intentionality, forethought, self- reactiveness, and self-reflectiveness (Bandura, 2001). Intentionality refers to the actions that someone takes in order to get a result that they desire. For example, if I find that I am tired every morning, I make a decision go to bed early because I want to get enough sleep so that I am no longer tired in the morning. Intentionality does not mean that the desired outcome always occurs; sometimes an undesired outcome is the result. Unlike intentionality, forethought considers both the positive and negative consequences associated with a decision. “If I decide to go to bed early, I do not get to watch my favorite TV show; is going to bed early worth it?” Self- reactiveness requires actors to move beyond thinking about how they could be intentional and what kind of obstacles they want to avoid. For example, “If I record my favorite TV show, then I can still go to bed early and watch the show at a time that doesn’t require me to stay up late.” Lastly, self-reflectiveness is required so that people can reflect upon their previous thoughts and actions in order to determine how they will make similar or different decisions in the future. “Though I recorded my favorite TV show, my friends talked about the plot and outcome on Facebook, so it was ruined for me. I’ll avoid getting on Facebook until after I finish watching the show so that the experience is not ruined for me.” The aforementioned components of human agency impact the presence of self-efficacy because of the role that self-efficacy beliefs play in how people decide what task they are going to attempt and how much energy they will use to be successful at that task (Bandura, 2001).

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When people have a high level of self-efficacy in a particular situation, they are inclined to put forth more effort in an attempt to resolve the situation than someone who has a low level of self- efficacy. People who have a weak level of self-efficacy in a particular situation do not believe their actions can change the outcome and therefore do not exert much effort to remedy the situation. Arslan (2012) articulated that elementary school students who believed that they were academically inept did not see the point of working hard to amass additional knowledge or improve their record of academic success because they did not think their efforts would actually make a positive difference. It was only through the development of academic self-efficacy that students began to feel like their actions would impact the outcome and started demonstrating more effort. The importance of agency and the development of self-efficacy not only apply to a particular part of the population at a given space in time, but is something that spans the human species. The aforementioned example about elementary school students can be connected to the current study because both studies involve human beings. If college students participating in their students organizations do not feel that they have agency in those organizations, the development of their overall self-efficacy development may be impacted. This study attempts to explore if there is a relationship between the general levels of self-efficacy held by the participants and their willingness to dissent in their student organization. The development of self-efficacy. Bandura (1997) explained that there are four ways to develop self-efficacy. The first way is through trying something and being successful. Students can develop academic self-efficacy simply by being successful at school. Performing well and getting good grades serve to help students to believe in their abilities to successfully accomplish academic tasks. The same can be said for students who do not perform well in school. It is more difficult for students who do not have a history of performing well academically to overcome their belief that they cannot do well, which leads to continued poor performance (Arslan, 2012). What human beings believe about themselves and their ability to accomplish tasks matters tremendously. Bandura (1997) went on to discuss another way that self-efficacy advances via vicarious experiences. Through vicarious experiences, individuals develop a belief in their ability to accomplish a task or overcome odds because they see other people similar to them succeed. Vicarious experiences provide an opportunity for role modeling to occur surrounding a particular

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experience. The role model does not have to be someone directly connected to the person, but does have to share a quality or characteristic held by the person watching. Before the election of Barak Obama to the Presidency of the United States, it was difficult for many African American people to see themselves in that particular role. Now that there is a person, who visibly presents as an African American serving as President of the United States, many more African American men, women, and children can better see the possibility of accomplishing this task in their own lives. In addition to having a vicarious experience through a role model, people also develop self-efficacy through verbal support from others. The beginning of this chapter focused on the concept of conformity. Through their nature, human beings are socialized to look toward and listen to others for feedback regarding their own actions. Many conformity is thought of as a bad thing, and sometimes it is. When it comes to self-efficacy, however, conforming to the beliefs of others, especially when they are being encouraging, can be a very effective way to develop high self-efficacy. A good example of this is when coaches give their teams a pep talk during a game. Words of encouragement from others have the potential to inspire a belief in oneself and help one feel better about trying new things or accomplishing tasks that may otherwise be avoided. The final source of self-efficacy is through one’s own psychological and affective state. That is to say that this source of self-efficacy is from within the person demonstrating it. People tapping into this source of self-efficacy believe that they can control the outcome of a task or event, not because they have ever done it, not because they have seen someone like themselves do it, and not because they have been told by others they can do it, but because they think they can. While Bandura (1997) was mostly unclear on exactly how this capacity is developed in individuals, he did explain that in these cases people make judgments about their capacities to accomplish the task, the likelihood of failure, and the consequences of such failure and then decide whether to proceed with an attempt to accomplish the task. It is important to remember that the development in self-efficacy can be contextually based. For example, if someone has a high level of self-efficacy related to gardening in Florida, it does not mean that the same person has a high level of self-efficacy in gardening in Arizona, where the land is very different. In order to develop self-efficacy in gardening in Arizona, the person would need to experience one of the four ways that self-efficacy is developed. It can be

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argued that the efficacy associated with gardening in one place does inform the efficacy of gardening in the other given the success achieved in the first location. I will use the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer and Jerusalem, 1995) to gain an understanding of the level of efficacy the respondents generally hold, and then compare that to the results of their answers on Kassing’s (1998) Organizational Dissent Scale. Since most of the current literature on college student dissent is in the area of instructional dissent (Goodboy, 2011), the current study aims to generate knowledge about student dissent beyond traditional classroom experiences. Leadership efficacy in college students. Since self-efficacy is a construct that is flexible across situations, there have been a plethora of studies completed about self-efficacy with the contexts of health management, classroom facilitation, student academic achievement and other topics. There has also been significant research performed on the role that efficacy plays in leadership development of college students which is relevant to this topic. Both leadership self-efficacy (the belief students have in their ability to negotiate groups or lead across boundaries) and leader self-efficacy (the belief that students have in their ability to be successful in a formal leadership experience) have been researched (Dugan, 2011). The reason for this focus is because college campuses spend an enormous amount of time trying to help students obtain experience which enables them to be effective leaders. In order to ensure that the strategies being developed and utilized are designed correctly, it is important to understand both the context in which students exist and how their belief about their ability to accomplish tasks (self-efficacy) influences their willingness to participate in leadership experiences (Dugan, 2011). While it is necessary for students to have knowledge about leadership as well as abilities to be a good leader, how their knowledge enables to them to act rest heavily on their level of efficacy: “Recent research shows that self-efficacy can explain up to 13% of the differences in students’ capacities to engage in socially responsible leadership” (Dugan and Komives, 2010 as cited in Dugan, 2011, p. 71). Socially responsible leadership is born out of the Social Change Model of Leadership Development which is comprised of seven constructs, also known as the 7 Cs: Consciousness of Self; Congruence; Commitment; ; Common Purpose; Controversy with Civility; and Citizenship (Astin et al., 1996). The Social Change Model is designed to encourage students to consider the needs of the many when engaging in leadership experiences.

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Students develop leader efficacy and leadership efficacy in the same ways that general self-efficacy is developed: mastery, verbal persuasion, vicarious experiences, and psychological affect. Involvement in student organizations, regardless of role, has the potential to influence the development of a students’ sense of efficacy. All four ways that self-efficacy is developed are frequently found in student organizations, but may not automatically be present. If students are not allowed to engage in mastery building experiences, they will have a harder time developing efficacy. Similarly, if older students or organizational advisors discourage or do not encourage less experienced students to take on a leadership role, then less experienced students’ sense of efficacy may be weakened, as well. Of course, as noted above, like all people, students may be able to harness efficacy through watching others successfully perform organizational tasks (vicarious) or by channeling their own psychological affects, which are both likely to support their willingness to try new things. From self-efficacy to collective efficacy. Being willing to try new things and face the consequences of failure does not mean that people who have high level of self-efficacy are self-centered or do not care for others (Bandura, 2007; Bandura, 2001). Of course, as within all groups of people, there are likely people with high self-efficacy who are self-centered, but the two should not be construed as one in the same. When people believe in their ability to positively effect change, they may also see that ability in others, which may result in higher collective efficacy for the teams in which they are members. More specifically, Bandura (2001) noted “that a high sense of efficacy promotes a prosocial orientation characterized by cooperativeness, helpfulness, and sharing” (p. 77). Indicators that impact collective efficacy include prior successes and complexity of the goal. Winton and Kane (2016) found that collective efficacy and outcome achievement were significantly related for groups whose were performance based. If the groups’ outcomes were learning based, as opposed to performance based, the collectively efficacy of the group was not related in a significant way to the accomplishment of the task. The level of collective efficacy is influenced by the beliefs (efficacy) of the individuals who are members of the group (Stajkovic, Lee, & Nyberg, 2009 as cited in Salanova et al., 2014). When high individual self-efficacy is appropriately leveraged it can be beneficial for the groups and organizations of which high efficacious people are members. Bandura (2007) explains that within a group or organization, collective efficacy is not just the summation of

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individual efficacies, but rather the synergy that develops among the group once the individuals come together to work towards a common goal. The construct of collective efficacy connects well with the earlier literature on conformity put forth by Sunstein (2003). The very socialization to acclimate and find commonality with others also touches and impacts our notion of collective efficacy. Groups with high collective efficacy are able to tap into the skills and abilities of their individuals members and decide on the best course of action for accomplishing the task at hand (Bandura, 2007). Self-Efficacy and Dissent There is a large gap between the literature about dissent and the literature about self- efficacy. When researching this topic, I noticed themes throughout both the self-efficacy literature and the dissent literature that appeared to connect to one another. When I looked specifically for literature connecting dissent to self-efficacy, I found only one article (Parker, 1993) that focused on nurses’ willingness to participate in dissent based on their perceived control over decision making. Parker found a positive correlation between self-efficacy and perceived control over decision making (.16, p<.05) She also found a positive correlation between self-efficacy and dissent (.34, p<.01). Parker’s focus on dissent related to the use of it as a prediction of whether an employee would eventually leave an organization. Parker (1993) found the relationship between one’s perceived control over decision making and plans to exit the organization were negatively correlated (-.26, p<.01). This means that the more control the subjects in Parker’s study believed they had in decision regarding their concerns the less likely they were to leave the organization. Although Parker’s (1993) research is very relevant to the concept of dissent and self- efficacy, its age and focus on nurses leads me to believe that additional work can be done in this area to further investigate the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent. Since dissent and self-efficacy are situational constructs, exploring the relationship between the two using a different participant base 22 years after Parker (1993), has the potential to produce new results and thus provide additional knowledge in both dissent and self-efficacy research areas. In addition to the age of the Parker (1993) study, my study differs in a few ways. Unlike the nurses in Parker’s study, all of my participants will be from voluntary student organizations, not places of employment. Also, most of my participants are between the ages of 18 – 22, unlike Parker’s participants whose average age was 34 years old. Lastly, only 5 of Parker’s 215 respondents

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were men. I was able to get a more even return rate between the sexes, which tells a more complete story about the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent than the one that Parker was able to tell in 1993. Closing This review of the literature provided insight on the constructs of dissent and self- efficacy. Our early socialization of groups as children establishes for us an expectation to work within the majority and not challenge the status quo. Though this type of socialization can provide safe and effective ways of maintaining order and community, some common community occurrences are unjust and should be challenged. For individuals to participate in effective dissent, they have to be able to see and articulate an alternative reality to the status quo. They also have to believe that their engagement in dissent has the potential to produce their desired results and is thus worth their time and effort. Though there is a robust amount of literature on self-efficacy and a fair amount of literature on dissent, the specific literature related to the connection and/or relationship between self-efficacy and dissent is extremely light. I could only find one article which expressed an explicit connection between the two constructs. That article is over 20 years old and focused on a specific context situated in a work environment. Given the parameters of the Parker (1993) study, there is a large amount of knowledge still to be revealed regarding the relationship between dissent and self-efficacy. The next chapter is about the processes I used to collect the quantitative and qualitative data. As a reminder, here are the research questions that guide the study: 1. What is the correlation between an individual’s level of self-efficacy and an individual’s experiences in expressing an opinion that is contrary (i.e. dissent) to a person in authority or the majority sentiment? Hypothesis 1a: There is a statistically significant positive correlation between a participant’s level of self-efficacy and expression of organizational dissent. 2. Does the correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent differ based upon which role (president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, etc.) participants hold in their student organizations? Hypothesis 2a: The role an individual has in an organization does not impact the correlation that exists between self-efficacy and dissent.

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3. Does experience with dissenting in one space correspond with one’s willingness to dissent in another? Hypothesis 3a: Participants will be able to describe how their engagement in dissent is demonstrated inside and outside of their primary student organizations. I answered the first two research questions using both quantitative data and qualitative data. The data collected for the third research question is qualitative only and therefore does not have a quantitative component. All of the procedures I used to collect data are outlined in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER III

METHODS AND METHODOLOGY

It is important to begin any research study with a decision made about the methodological approach that will be used to address the question. Kaplan (1998) explained that there is a difference between research methods and research methodology. Research methodology refers to the framework that the researcher uses to develop the research question(s) as well as what the interaction will be between the researcher and the participants in the study. Research methods refer to the ways in which the collection of the information related to the research question will occur. In thinking about this particular study, I have determined that my research questions are best answered using the interpretive framework of pragmatism. Creswell (2013) explained that researchers who use pragmatism focus on using whatever they deem to be the most appropriate means to discover the answer to their research question(s). I chose to use this framework because of the flexibility this type of approach allowed me to have related to method selection. Crewsell (2013) noted “pragmatists do not see the world as an absolute unity. In a similar way researchers look to many approaches to collecting and analyzing data rather than subscribing to only one way” (p. 28). My selection of pragmatism as the interpretive framework for this project is evidenced through my collection of data as well as the analysis. I recognize that knowledge can be acquired through various means and elected to use two different methods to gather information in order to discover the answers to my research questions. I first employed methods frequently used in post- positivist methodology. In positivist research, the goal is to use rigorous and objective methods to measure the presence of a relationship between two or more variables. Positivists have historically argued that the most appropriate way to conduct research and gain scientific knowledge is through complete and total removal of any influence by the researcher on the phenomena being studied (Benton and Craib, 2011). Post-positivists recognize that despite researchers’ best efforts, researchers cannot help but to exert influence over their projects. The researcher’s influence is exerted through the selection of the research question, selection of data collection procedures, as well as the interpretation of the data. One of the key components of positivist research is the ability to verify the presence of a relationship between the phenomena (Kaplan, 1998). Since I desired to determine if a

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relationship between self-efficacy and dissent existed, I elected to utilize a similar method that is commonly used within the post-positivist methodology. More specifically, two of my research questions were best approached through using standard validated and verified instruments to determine whether there was of a relationship between self-efficacy and dissent. I suspected that there was a correlation between one’s expression of dissent and one’s level of self-efficacy. Once the survey instrument results were analyzed, I conducted interviews with a select group of participants to provide narrative support for the quantitative data collected as well as to address the third research question. In employing interviews, I used a research method that is frequently exercised in different forms of qualitative research including narrative, case study, phenomenological, grounded theory, and ethnographic. The interview portion of my study proved to be a strategy that was necessary in order to best understand the quantitative data. The interview portion of this study utilized the “experiences as expressed in lived and told stories of individuals” (Creswell, 2013, p. 70). If the quantitative process served as the skeletal and muscular structure of the study, the qualitative method of interviewing participants provided skin and other unique features; this permitted a more holistic understanding of the phenomena. The first two questions have both qualitative and quantitative components that will be discussed in the results section of this paper. The quantitative and qualitative features of each research question will be examined thoroughly before moving on to the next question. The third research question does not have a quantitative component and will only focus on the qualitative data collected from the interview participants. Quantitative Procedures The participants in this study were undergraduate students who were members of at least one student organization at a public university located in the Midwest region of the United States. The selected institution had 16,000 undergraduate students involved in over 450 student organizations. The number of student organizations and the scope of the topics covered made the selection of student organizational members a good way to attempt to survey a group of students who cut across a variety of different campus demographics. In addition, by not limiting the pool to a particular organizational position (i.e., president, etc.), I was able to utilize the data collected to explore if the level of one’s self-efficacy or expression of dissent differed based upon one’s role in the organization.

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Permission to participate in the study was sought from the Institutional Review Board at the host institution. Upon receiving IRB approval, I partnered with the Office of Student Activities to retrieve student organization membership rosters in order to access participants. The original roster from the Office of Student Activities included everyone who had ever been involved in a student organization. The original results produced approximately 16,000 individuals including, former students, current students, first-year students, as well as faculty and staff, after duplicates were removed. With the goal sample size of 250 students, I worked with a staff member in the Office of Institutional Research to review of all submitted names, and identify current full-time degree seeking undergraduates who had completed at least one academic year. Students who identified themselves as organizational presidents through the Office of Student Activities were oversampled to assist in the answering the second research question. At the same time, individuals who were currently participating in other university research efforts were removed from the sample. Since students at the host school frequently complain about being over-surveyed institutional efforts have been made to reduce the amount of surveying each student experiences. Working with the Office of Institutional Research reduced the chance that my participants were suffering from survey fatigue. Once the pool was identified, a survey was sent to 2500 students who fit the criteria. Selected participants were given three weeks to complete an online questionnaire. As incentive to complete the survey, participants were permitted to sign up for an opportunity win a $150.00 gift card for completing the survey. Of the 2500 students invited to participate in the survey 538 completed the informed consent and agreed to continue with the survey. Participants. Participants were asked to report the number of semesters that they had completed at the host institution. The number of completed semesters ranged from 2 semesters to 10 semesters (Median = 5.00, S.D 1.668). More specifically, the number of semesters students participated in their primary student organization, as defined by the respondents, ranged from 1 semester to 10 semesters (Median of 4.00, S.D. 1.710). Students participating in the survey represented a wide variety of student organizational types: Academic 19.2%, Leadership 12.3%, Multicultural 6.9%, Service 14.4%, Social 34.1% and Sport/Intramural 13%.

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Table 3.1 Types of Student Organizations (N=478) Organization Type N %

Academic 92 19.2

Leadership 59 12.3

Multicultural 33 6.9

Service 69 14.4

Social 163 34.1

Sport/Intramural 62 13

Note: Totals of percentages do not equal 100 for every characteristic due to rounding.

The subject pool was also representative of a variety of different type of organizational positions. Although organizational presidents were oversampled, they only represented 12.4% of the respondents. Almost half of respondents reported being either committee members 23.2% or general members 22.9%, this makes sense since presidential roles are less prevalent than committee member and general member counterparts. See Table 4.6 for the number of participants in each organizational position. Demographic information regarding the social identities of the participants was also collected. Questions regarding sex, race, domestic citizenship status, and designation as an in- state or out of state student were collected. Since these items were not core components related to the research questions at hand, they were near the end of the survey, and not necessarily answered by those who completed other components of the survey. As such, the demographic numbers reported are based upon the number of participants who chose to report, and not the number of respondents who completed other parts of the survey. Of the individuals who chose to disclose their race or ethnicity, 198 identified as White and 37 identified as students of color. In regards to gender/sex, 78 of the 249 people who reported their sex or gender identified as men, 170 identified as women and one reported their identity as transgendered. When reviewing the pool based upon national origin, 241 students

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indicated that they were domestic and 10 reported an international student status. Lastly, since this school has a high percentage of out-of-state students, data were collected around this demographic as well. Ninety students reported their statehood as other than the home state of the institution, but 160 shared they were considered in-state students. In comparison to the greater student body, the sample reflected the racial majority of the campus. The sample aligned less in terms out-of-state students and men, both of which have a more prominent presence in the greater campus community than that in the sample. See table 3.2 for descriptions of the demographic characteristics of the survey participants. Table 3.3 provides means and standard deviations of the number of semesters the participants have been in attendance at the host institution as well as the number of semesters in their primary student organization. Table 3.2 Demographic Characteristics of Participants Characteristic n %

Sex/Gender (n=249) Man 78 31.3 Woman 170 68.8 Transgendered 1 .004 Race (n=235) White/Caucasian 198 84 Students of Color 37 16 State of Origin (n=250) In State 160 64 Out of State 90 36 Country of Origin (n=251) United States 241 96 International 10 4 Semesters at Institution (n=479) 2-4 153 31.9 5-7 313 65.3 8-10 13 2.7 Semesters in Primary Organization

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1-4 282 59 5-7 189 39.5 8-10 7 1.4 Note: Totals for percentages are not 100 because of rounding.

Table 3.3 Participant Semesters at the Institution and in their Primary Organization Institution Organization Semesters M SD M SD 5.09 1.668 4.04 1.710

Measurement Instruments The instruments selected for this study, Organizational Dissent Scale (Kassing, 1998) and Generalized Self Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) are generally used with other items. In addition to formulating the survey instrument so that the questions related to self- efficacy and the questions related to dissent did not feel disconnected for the participants, I also collected demographic information related to year in school, sex, race, and student organization affiliations. A complete copy of the survey instrument used for this project can be found in the appendix section of this document. General Efficacy Scale. The instrument developed by Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1995) is composed of 10 items that assess the extent to which individuals believe that they can accomplish tasks and overcome adversity. The instrument utilizes items such as “I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort” “If I am in trouble, I can usually think of a solution” and “I can usually handle whatever comes my way.” Participants respond to items using a scale ranging from 1 (Not true at all) to 4 (Exactly true), resulting in total scores between 10 and 40. In previous work, the instrument’s Chronbach’s alpha has ranged from 0.70 to 0.90 with most of the scores falling within the 0.80 range (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995). For the current study, the Chronbach’s alpha was 0.84, which was consistent with the studies that have used also utilized this instrument.

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Organizational Dissent Scale. The Organizational Dissent Scale (ODS) was developed in 1998 by Jeffrey Kassing to measure organizational dissent. The Organizational Dissent Scale is a good selection for this particular study because it is situated in an organizational context. Since my subject pool was drawn from student organizations, measuring the occurrence of dissent within the context of an organization is most appropriate. I adjusted the wording of the Organizational Dissent Scale to fit within a student organizational context. The word “work” was frequently exchanged for “organization”; the words supervisor or management were exchanged for “organizational leaders”; the word “employee” was exchanged for other organizational members.” The presence of a Chronbach’s alpha that is consistent with ranges produced by previous studies that utilized the ODS verifies that the reliability of the items was not impacted by the rewording of the questions. The original Organizational Dissent Scale was initially composed of 27 items in which respondents reported on their expression of organizational dissent using a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), though 10 items were reversed coded. After analyzing the survey for internal reliability, seven items were removed from the instrument, and four items designed to measure displaced dissent were added, which resulted in a final total of 24 survey questions (Kassing, 1998). For the current study, participants were surveyed on the 20 original items, as well as the four additional dissent questions. The instrument measured three different types of dissent: articulated, displaced, and antagonistic. Articulated dissent is the willingness to share disagreement about organizational circumstances with or superiors. Nine items on the ODS fall into the articulated dissent factor. A good representation of the articulated dissent items found in this survey is the statement: “I don’t tell organizational leaders when I disagree with an organizational decision.” Items related to articulated dissent had a Chronbach’s alpha of 0.846 in the study. The second factor of the ODS is displaced dissent. Displaced dissent is the extent to which individuals express dissent to parents, friends, and others who are not connected with the workplace, best demonstrated through this statement: “I talk about my organizational concerns to people outside of the organization.” Of the 24 items on the survey instrument, six of them fall into the displaced dissent factor. The displaced dissent factor had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.723 in the study.

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The final factor is Kassing’s (1998) scale is antagonistic dissent. Antagonistic dissent measures one’s willingness to express dissent to peers and other coworkers. The remaining nine items on the ODS fall into this category. Items related to agonistic dissent are represented well by this statement “I complain about things in my organization to other organizational members.” The antagonistic dissent factor had a Chronbach’s alpha of 0.749 in the study. When combining all of 24 items together the Organizational Dissent Scale had an overall Chronbach’s alpha of 0.789 in the study. Procedures for Statistical Analysis In order to answer my first research question: “What is the correlation between an individual’s level of self-efficacy and an individual’s experiences in expressing an opinion that is contrary (i.e., dissent) to a person in authority or the majority sentiment?” I conducted a bivariate correlation. According to George and Mallery (2011), a bivariate correlation is an appropriate way to designate simple connection between two variables. Running a bivariate correlation helped me establish whether there was a positive correlation between one’s self- efficacy and one’s expression of dissent. There are different types of bivariate correlations that can be run through statistical software SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) in order to determine if there is a correlation between two variables. Before I could choose which correlation to run, I first needed to determine if survey results were distributed normally. To determine whether the distribution of results from the survey instrument was normal, I conducted a test of normality. Since my number of respondents was less than 2000 people, utilizing the Shapiro-Wilk test of normality was most appropriate. When the test of normality resulted in a p-value of less than 0.05, I used the Spearman correlation to determine if there was a significant relationship between the two variables. Since according to George and Mallery (2011), variables can be significantly correlated either positively or negatively, it was most appropriate to use two-tailed significance when computing correlations since it is often unclear whether the direction of the correlation is likely to be positive or negative. Research Question #2. My second research question: “Does the correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent differ based upon which role (president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, etc.) participants hold in their student organizations?” assumed that there was a

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correlation between self-efficacy and dissent and questioned if this correlation was different for participants because of their positional roles in the organizations. The use of a One-way ANOVA permitted me to determine whether there was a statistical difference within any of the comparisons among the student organization position types (George and Mallery, 2011). Participants were asked to select the organizational position that most closely aligned with the role they held in their student organization. The choices of positions included: president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, committee member, general member, and other (See table 3.4 for a description of organizational roles.). I performed two different statistical analyses. The first analysis I conducted was a Spearman Rho bivariate correlation. The test helped me determine if there was a difference in the correlation of dissent (overall, articulated, displaced, antagonistic) and self-efficacy. The second statistical test I conducted was a measurement of the mean scores between position types. Since the data from the sample was not normally distributed, I elected to conduct a Kruskal-Wallis One-Way ANOVA. Since completing the Kruskal-Wallis only revealed that there was a statistical difference in the means between groups, I used the Tukey post-hoc test to identify between which groups there was a statistical difference. Table 3.4 Explanation of Organizational Positions President The highest position in the organization. Holds both the most authority and generally the most responsibility for the success and well-being of the organization. Vice The second highest position in the organization. In addition to having other President responsibilities, the VP serves in the role of the president if the president cannot complete the term of office. Secretary Takes notes and distributes minutes of organizational meetings. May also be responsible for taking attendance. Treasurer Has financial responsibility for the organization. May collect money, arrange for payment of goods, and track organizational expenditures. Committee Participates in an organizational committee designed to accomplish a particular Member organizational task. General Member of the organization who holds no special role. Member

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Other Member of the organization that does not fit into the above categories.

Regression Analysis The initial design of the study did not call for a decision to be made regarding whether the presence of high self-efficacy influences the expression of dissent. However, once a correlation was verified, I determined that it was scientifically appropriate to conduct a linear regression. In conducting this analysis the level of generalized self-efficacy served as the predictor variable and the overall dissent score serves as the outcome variable. I also performed a linear regression between articulated dissent and self-efficacy. Similar to the first regression, self-efficacy served as the independent variable, while articulated dissent served as the predictor variable. It is important to note that although conclusive results regarding inferences associated with completing a linear regression help clarify an existing relationship between two phenomena, it should not be viewed as a guarantee that the phenomena always interact with each other in the same way or that one causes the other. Qualitative Procedures In order to make sure that the participants for the interview portion of the project were diverse and representative of the larger sample, I divided the scores for each concept into low, medium and high categories. For the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale, (GSE) any score below 20 was categorized as low, scores 21 - 30 were categorized as medium, and scores 31 and above were categorized as high. In the Organizational Dissent Scale (ODS), scores 30 - 50 were categorized as low, scores 51-70 were categorized as medium, and scores between 71-90 were categorized as high. Once the scales were determined, I divided the participants into categories based upon their cumulative scores on the dissent and self-efficacy portions of the survey. Participants were assigned into one of four categories: (1) low self-efficacy/low dissent, (2) high self-efficacy/high dissent, (3) medium self-efficacy, medium dissent, and (4) high self- efficacy/high dissent. Once the groups were established, I used responses at the end of the survey where students were given the opportunity to indicate whether they were willing to speak with me more about their answers. An incentive of $50.00 in gift cards was offered to students who were selected and chose to participate in the interview portion of the study. Only students who completed 100% of the survey were eligible to participate in the interview portion of the study. There were 157 students who volunteered to participate in the interview component of the study.

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Of those willing to participate in follow-up discussions, 4 students were selected. The four students selected represented different components of the population who completed the survey. Participant scores from each scale were divided into the low, medium, and high categories and then interview participants were identified based upon the aforementioned factors as well as the category in which they were situated. Since the number of men (n=78) completing the survey was significantly lower than the number of women (n=170), I chose to interview three women and one man. I also desired to have a racial heterogeneous subgroup of interviews, and elected to interview three students who were white, and one student of color. I made the decision to only interview one student of color based on the number of students of color who participated in the larger survey (n=37). Participants were also selected based on their scores on the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995), and the Organizational Dissent Scale (Kassing, 1998). One participant, Sarah represented individuals who scored low on the self-efficacy scale and high on the dissent scale. Sarah actually had the lowest self-efficacy score of all of the participants who took part in the survey and volunteered for the interview portion. The second participant, Amber, served as the only student of color interviewed in this part of the study. Amber scored high on the self-efficacy scale and high on the dissent scale. Student number three, Alan, also scored high on the self-efficacy scale, as well as the dissent scale, but differs from Amber due to both his race and gender. Lastly, student number four, Cece, served as a counter to Sarah by having a high self-efficacy score, and low overall dissent score. See Table 3.5 for information regarding each interview participant. Table 3.5 Demographic Information about the Interview Participants Pseudony S Race College Org. Org. Type Org. Role ODS GSE m e Semesters Semesters Score Score x

Sarah F White 4 4 Sport/Intramural General 48.04 34.4 Member

Amber F Non- 2 – 2 Social President 61.21 17.1 White Transfer student

Alan M White 6 5 Academic Captain 71.04 36.4

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Cece F White 4 3 Academic Committee 86.04 31.4 Chair

Interviews. My final research question: “Does experience with dissenting in one space correspond with one’s willingness to dissent in another?” was best answered through a qualitative approach (Creswell, 2012). In addition to providing an answer to research question number three, the qualitative portion of the project also provided narrative support for the data that were being collected via the survey instruments for research questions one and two. Each participant completed three hour-long interviews. The first interview focused on the participants’ self-efficacy, the second was about the participants’ experience dissenting against a person in authority or a group majority, and the final was about how the participants experienced self-efficacy and dissent during their time as student organizational members, both inside and outside of the organization. Prior to asking the pre-determined questions, I engaged the participants in a brief conversation about the current status of the lives, organizational commitments, classes and other experiences. Setting aside a little bit of time prior to each interview allowed the participants and I build rapport and gently ease into the topic at hand. All four participants were asked the same set of questions in each interview, regardless of their earlier designation based upon their scores. In addition to answering the pre-determined questions, interview participants also answered questions that I created in response to answers given by the participant. This interview approach, also known as semi-structured, allowed for enough consistency across interviews, while permitting enough flexibility to delve deeper into the lived experiences of the participants. In addition to asking the participants predetermined and spontaneous questions, every respondent was permitted to ask me any questions they had about the research topic and the purpose of the study. Each interview was recorded and transcribed verbatim for accuracy and coding purposes. A complete copy of the original interview questions can be found in Appendix B. Procedures for analysis of qualitative data. In order to analyze the qualitative data collected through the interview portion of this project, I used a constant comparative approach between the respondents’ initial answers on the instrument, observations ascertained through the interview process, and careful review of interview transcripts, which I transcribed verbatim from the audio recording. I also shared

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portions of my summary of the interviews with the respondents in order to ensure the accuracy of my transcriptions. Given the very small sample of participants (4) for the interview portion of this project, I did not use qualitative software to store and organize the data. The narrative support for the quantitative data addresses the questions that are related to how self-efficacy and dissent are related through the lens of someone’s lived experiences, which is something that cannot be accomplished through quantitative data alone. Data collected through the course of the interview process was reviewed in two ways. First the responses of all four respondents were compared and contrasted against one another, within the context of each particular interview. This approach allowed me to identify themes within each interview topic that were shared among two or more respondents. At the same time utilizing this method also allowed me to note differences between each respondent. Interview data were also analyzed for consistency and continuity among each participant. While it was certainly beneficial review participant responses as a collective, it was equally beneficial to identify various components of individual respondents’ answers across interviews. It was a fairly common occurrence for a response in one interview to reappear in later interviews. Ethical Considerations It is always important to think about ethical considerations when conducting research. It is even more imperative to perform this reflection when working with human beings. More specifically, participants should be made aware of any associated with their participation, as well as their ability to leave the study prior to the end of the project. In this study, prior to beginning the survey instruments, invited participants were asked to provide their consent to participate in the project. Once beginning the survey, participants were allowed to stop at any time. In addition to voluntary participation, it was also important that I did everything possible to protect the data collected so that participants are not adversely affected by their participation in the study. As such, data collected for this study were kept in a password protected file, within password protected software. Additionally, data from this study will not be presented in a way where the students are identifiable. Participants interviewed for the qualitative portion of this project were allowed to select pseudonyms, which were used in this document.

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Limitations Although I desired to uncover any significant relationship between self-efficacy and dissent, I recognize that the results from my study cannot be generalized to a very broad population. Given the context of my sample, college-aged students who are involved in student organizations on one college campus, it is inappropriate to expect my results to explain the relationship between dissent and self-efficacy across different situations and sample groups. Additionally, it is important to note that my study is set in the present for the present. The students who participated in this project were merely sharing a snapshot of their current experiences as student leaders. It is fair to expect that over the course of their lives, and in a variety of different contexts, these organizational participants would likely respond to both the qualitative and quantitative portions of the project differently.

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CHAPTER IV FINDINGS

The purpose of this study is to attempt to understand how self-efficacy influences student organizational leaders’ desire to communicate their displeasure with the status quo, a person in authority or the majority sentiment. As a concept, the idea of a status quo is hard to grasp because it is contextually based. I’ve had the experience of being a member at two different types of churches. The context of the status quo of my childhood church was a two hour service that consisted of singing the same opening song every week, the collection of money (tithes and missionary) at two different points during the service, and about a 30 minute sermon from the pastor. The church I attend now has services that last approximately one-hour, you never know exactly what songs will be sung, the collection of money occurs once, and the pastor speaks for about 25 minutes. There is nothing wrong with either of these procedures; they reflect a status quo for each different membership. As a rule the status quo, regardless of context, should not automatically be considered negative. In my family, the children go to bed before the adults; this is our status quo. In the same way that the status quo should not automatically be considered negative, it should not automatically be considered positive. If the status quo in my family was to call the children demeaning names, then that status quo would be negative. Similarly everything in our society is not negative, but in those instances where the status quo is creating or sustaining inequitable experiences or unethical actions, it must be challenged in order to be corrected. Dissenters challenge the status quo and by association those in power who maintain it. The list of obstacles in the world that individuals have to negotiate is endless. For some people, finding a safe place to live, regular food to eat, and a job to maintain can be quite challenging. Add to those challenges economic inequity, random and not-so-random acts of violence, and oppression related to race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, region, and so on, and one begins to wonder if it is even worth getting up every day. Fortunately, as long as there have been challenges to living in the world, there have been people who participate in dissent around societal issues by using their words and actions to create positive lasting change. The question of how one’s level of self-efficacy might influence one’s willingness to dissent is designed to determine if one’s level of self-efficacy impacts one’s expression of disagreement to others.

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This chapter outlines the findings associated with both the quantitative and qualitative research processes associated with the study. As mentioned in chapter 3, the first two research questions have both quantitative and qualitative portions. Each question will be addressed in its entirety before the next question is considered. The quantitative results are underscored by the qualitative findings that follow. The final research question only has a qualitative portion in which the students describe their experiences with dissent in a variety of contexts and people in their lives. Results for Research Question #1 A primary purpose of this study is to determine if there is a significant relationship (correlation) between self-efficacy and dissent. The answer to this question sets the stage for all of the other information in the study. With a correlation, additional questions have to be asked regarding the nature of the correlation, factors that influence the relationship, and if the presence of one construct predicts the presence of the other. If the answer to the question is no, there is no significant correlation between the constructs of self-efficacy and dissent, all that is gained is knowledge one’s level of self-efficacy does not statistically significantly correlate with one’s expression of dissent. Table 4.1 Means and Standard Deviations for Each Instrument Instrument n M SD ODS 176 61.51 8.78 GSE 249 29.43 3.53

Table 4.2 Means and Standard Deviations for Expressions of Organizational Dissent Type of Dissent n M SD Articulated 373 19.30 4.96 Antagonistic 396 26.67 4.64 Displaced 379 13.96 3.43

The first research question: “What is the correlation between an individual’s level of self- efficacy and one’s experiences in offering an opinion that is contrary (i.e. dissent) to a person in authority or the majority sentiment?” can be initially answered by running a relatively simple

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procedure using statistical software. Either there is a significant correlation between the two constructs or there is not. Given these two constructs and the instruments used to measure their relationship to one another, the explanation of the findings requires providing more than just a simple yes or no answer. Upon running a Spearman correlation between the ODS and the Generalized Self- Efficacy Scale (GSE), I discovered a negative correlation between generalized self-efficacy and organizational dissent r =-0.272, p <.01. While I was glad that there was a correlation between the two variables because it led to more exciting research questions, I was surprised that the correlation between the two constructs was negative. A negative correlation means that for the participants in this study, the higher one’s generalized self-efficacy, the lower one’s expression of dissent. This result was contrary to my hypotheses, which predicted that there would be a positive correlation between the two variables. This finding is also contrary to Parker (1993) who found a positive correlation between self-efficacy and dissent. As a note, Parker and I used two different instruments to conduct our analysis, which might account for the difference in our findings. Given the initial outcome of the correlation, I thought it prudent to divide the ODS instrument into its three associated factors (articulated, antagonistic, and displaced) and conduct a Spearman correlation between the GSE and the ODS questions associated with each factor. The outcome of the Spearman correlation between the GSE and questions associated with displaced dissent was not negative and not significant r = 0.006, p > .05. The outcome of the Spearman correlation between the GSE and the questions associated with antagonistic dissent was negative, but was not significant r = -0.075, p > .05. The outcome of the Spearman correlation between the GSE scale and the questions associated with articulated dissent was negative and was also statistically significant r = -0.369, p < .01. These results lead me to believe that the questions associated with articulated dissent are influential in pushing the overall correlation between the GSE and ODS scales into a statistically significant and negative correlation. The results of the Spearman correlation for both the GSE and ODS, as well as the GSE and the articulated dissent questions reveal that the higher one’s level of generalized self- efficacy, the lower one’s expression of articulated dissent. Simultaneously, the results also reveal that the higher one’s expression of articulated dissent, the lower one’s level of generalized self-

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efficacy. Table 4.3 outlines the results for the bivariate correlation conducted between generalized self-efficacy and overall dissent. Table 4.3 Bivariate Correlation Results for Generalized Self-Efficacy and Various forms of Expression of Organizational Dissent GSE OVEDissent ARTDissent ANTDissent DISDissent

-.0272** -0.369** -0.075 -0.006

Note: Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). OVEDissent = Overall Dissent; ARTDissent=Articulated Dissent; ANTDissent = Antagonistic Dissent; DISDissent = Displaced Dissent.

These results feel counter-intuitive because self-efficacy is defined as a belief held by people about the impact their actions can have on their desired outcomes. It stands to reason that if someone with high self-efficacy is unhappy or disagrees with something that is going on within their organization, they would communicate their disagreement to someone who could do something about it. The assumption is that self-efficacy would lead individuals who are unhappy with the current situation to voice their opinions in order to affect the outcome and get the results they desire. Regardless of how intuitive that explanation sounds, within the context of this study the quantitative results point to highly efficacious people choosing not to communicate their dissent to individuals in power. It is important to identify what percentage of the variance in articulated dissent is due to one’s level of generalized self-efficacy. In order to find the percentage, the coefficient of determination must be identified. The coefficient of determination is r squared. Given that r= - .292, r squared = .073. This means that of all of the factors which influence one’s expression of dissent, 7.3% has to do with the level of generalized self-efficacy. The negative correlation actually indicates that the presence of self-efficacy, even at the 7.3% rate will impact the expression of dissent in an opposing way. Since only a negative correlation has been established, the factors that contribute to the remaining 93.7% remain unknown. I also conducted a linear regression to see if there is a predictive quality in the self- efficacy and dissent relationship. Since the results from the first part of the study determined that there was no statistically significant relationship between displaced dissent and self-efficacy or antagonistic dissent and self-efficacy, I did not run a linear regression related to those constructs.

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I did run two linear regressions related to the constructs where there was a proven correlation between self-efficacy and dissent. The first regression I conducted was between generalized self- efficacy and organizational dissent. The second regression was between generalized self-efficacy and articulated dissent. In both situations, there was a predictive quality between the two variables. There was an r squared value of .068, which means that approximately 7% of students’ participation in all dissent (articulate, antagonistic, and displaced) can be anticipated based on their level of self-efficacy. When just looking at the connection between articulated dissent and generalized self-efficacy, there was an r squared value of .145, which means that approximately 15% of students’ participation in articulated dissent can be anticipated based on their level of self-efficacy. Further explanation of the phenomenon via the qualitative process. The results of the quantitative portion of the study provide evidence suggesting that there is a relationship between the constructs of self-efficacy and dissent. The first part of the study also reveals that the variance or the percentage of variability in dissent that is predicted by participants’ level of self-efficacy is relatively small. Without fully knowing the other components that also impact the decision making process about participating in dissent, it is difficult to know how large the self-efficacy component is in comparison to the other components. For example, if all of the other components that influence the decision to participate in dissent have a lower rate of variance than self-efficacy, self-efficacy could actually be the largest factor. Regardless of whether the rate of variance of self-efficacy in the decision process related to dissent is large or small, it is important to consider the reasons why the negative correlation exists. The themes that emerged from the interview portion of the project that provide insight into the presence of the correlation are: (1) dissent through actions rather than through speech; (2) choosing not to dissent because a successful outcome is unlikely; (3) lack of concern for the organization; (4) believing someone else will express dissent; and (5) being content with the present situation. Theme 1: Dissenting through action rather than through speech. The first reason why there might be a negative correlation between self-efficacy and dissent is how the participants personally view self-efficacy and dissent. We currently live in a world where effectively communicating to a higher authority about a problem that exists is seen as doing something to resolve the problem. Sending an email, posting an opinion on social

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media, and even having an in-person conversation with someone in authority are frequently seen as good and productive ways to produce change. In essence, saying something is equivalent to doing something. The results of this study actually reveal that despite public rhetoric, communicating about a problem is not viewed in the same way as doing something to resolve the problem. Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s actions to affect one’s outcomes. If participants hold high self-efficacy regarding their ability to solve a problem, there is little need for them to communicate the problem to another person, even if that person has more authority or power than the person who identified the problem. If I can solve my own problem, there is no need for me to tell someone about the problem in order for them to solve it. Given this reality surrounding self-efficacy, it stands to reason that when people are communicating disagreement to someone else, they have a reduced belief in their ability to affect their outcomes without assistance from others. The better the participants feel about their actions positively affecting their outcomes, the less of the need that they have to communicate their desired outcome to others. Their disagreement does not present itself in mere words, but rather is most directly communicated through actions. All four participants in the interview portion of the study discussed a time when someone or a group of people told them that something was either impossible or extraordinarily difficult to accomplish. Instead of spending time arguing with the person or the group of people who made the claim that the participants would not be able to achieve their desired outcomes, the participants demonstrated great resolve and sacrifice in an attempt to overcome the assumed obstacles. Sarah dreamed of participating in a collegiate sports organization, even before she was in her senior year of college: Well, when I, my story with this organization is when I was in 6th grade, I saw them and I didn’t, I’d never seen this sport before and I thought, oh that’s really cool and I remember turning to my mom and I was like “oh I’m going to be one of them someday.” and then from there on out, everything was about making that team. And I, at first, everyone in my home team was like, “okay, like whatever, that girl wants do something, and I don’t even, like what is it?” but then by my senior year, everyone was like “oh

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Sarah is going to go to “this school” next year. And, I mean, I guess I kind of changed everyone’s minds about that. I came here and I made the intro team. Sarah did not allow the opinions of those around her to distract her desire to achieve her goal. The belief she held about her own ability to work hard to accomplish the goal was guided by what Bandura (1997) would refer to in self-efficacy development as her psychological affect. In concert with another self-efficacy development characteristic, vicarious experience (seeing someone like you accomplish something you are trying to accomplish helps you believe you can accomplish it too), Sarah had no question in her mind that she would achieve her desired outcome. Her initial belief, led to her increased focus and additional practice, which improved her overall skill and moved her into the direction of accomplishing her goal until she was successful. For the second interviewee, Amber, the desired outcome was not related to becoming part of a student organization, but rather her desire to perform well academically in a new environment. As a transfer student, Amber had mastery experience, another self-efficacy development characteristic, of performing well academically. When she was told by peers who had completed an introductory science course that has a high rate of students receiving Ds and Fs, that it was impossible to get a C, she refused to let that be her reality. When she learned that her previous practices of preparing for class were not going to be enough to get her the grade she desired, she sought out resources to assist her in accomplishing her goal. She did everything in her power to prove the skeptics wrong: And I didn’t want to just accept that fact that everything was going to be not passing. I took the first exam and I thought I studied a lot for it and I think I got like a C or a D, which was not awful, but like not acceptable for me. I started meeting my professor once or twice a week for office hours, and asked questions and if he was not there, I’d ask another biology professor, I found out there’s a section offered a term, the like SI [supplemental instruction] sessions or something like that, I started attending those every time they were offered. I did individual study time and learned how to do, there is a certain chart I can’t remember what they’re called, but they’re kind of like bubble charts- -take the main idea and, link all of your ideas together. And then they offered a class called Bio 104 that teaches you how to study for these classes, so I went and used every resource. I didn’t want to accept that fact that getting a C would be considered impossible

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and I finished the class with a C. And though it's not that good of a grade, I felt like I accomplished the world, because I was told it was nearly impossible to get a C. Amber recognized fairly early on that she did not want the spoken expectation that her peers had of barely passing the class to become her reality. She initially assumed that the same level of effort and hard work that she was accustomed to would be enough to get her to her goal. After finding her previous efforts to be insufficient, Amber did not continue to pursue her same efforts over and over again, she did not just complain about the course content, the instructor, or the assignments; she developed a new system that would better equip her to achieve her desired outcome. The next interviewee, Cece, had self-imposed pressure to spend as little money as possible on college. Though no one ever explicitly told her that she would be unable to get a scholarship to a school of her choice, she did receive directives that caused her to believe that she was expected to sacrifice her desires for the good of the family. The thinking at the time was that she would either go to a school that was far too expensive and create financial difficulty for the remaining children, or settle for a lesser experience in order to accommodate the other four children who have college plans of their own: And I was like “Oh my God, everyone is telling me that this will be impossible.” And instead of letting it be true, I just kind of you know, researched and persistently asked questions and went to my counselor in high school and went to counselors at the university I was touring and went on their websites and I think I spent like 6 hours a week on the college board website. Like researching the colleges that would be the cheapest and I worked really hard in high school and I got a full ride to this school. And I kind of laughed in everybody’s face. Cece’s psychological affect, her general belief in the ability of her actions to accomplish her outcomes, carried her to her destination. She wasn’t compelled to complete her task because others thought that she could (verbal persuasion) or because she had previous accomplished a similar task (mastery), or because she had seen someone else do it (vicarious experience), but just because she was too stubborn to listen to others or let herself get in her own way. Like Amber and Sarah, Cece spent a large amount of time and energy attempting to accomplish her desired outcome and was successful in achieving her goal.

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The final interviewee, Alan, was a high achieving and active high school student who had no interest in slowing down when he began college. Similar to Sarah, Alan identified a student organization that he wanted to be a part of prior to getting admitted to the school. His desire to accomplish his scholarly endeavors while being an active member of a highly competitive student organization caused his 5 academic advisors to believe he would not be able to graduate in 4 years: Well, so, I have six advisors in college. I have a business advisor, a BLS advisor, a chemistry advisor, an honors advisor, and a, okay 5, and the CAS advisor, right? The College of Arts and Science. And so when I was in my freshman/sophomore year trying to figure out “how can I balance two majors, participate in my student organization, and graduate on time, they pretty much told me it was impossible. So, I for, well, let’s see this is the 7th semester in college. Out of 7 semesters, I think only two of them I haven’t taken over 18 credit hours. There have been three or four that I have taken over 20. So, I’ve been very busy. Although Alan did not ultimately accomplish his desired outcome of graduating in 4 years, this was due to a change in post-graduation plans. His initial plans did not require the completion of a chemistry degree specifically, but a college degree in general. This allowed Alan to complete the requirements for his other major while taking as many chemistry classes as possible. The cause of the delay in graduation was not the chemistry courses, but the general education requirements that accompanied the overall major. Upon changing his post-graduation plans, it became necessary for Alan to graduate with a degree in chemistry, general education requirements and all. All four students communicated about how they demonstrated, through their actions, that what they wanted to accomplish was possible. Sarah made the team, Cece got a scholarship to college, Amber earned a desirable grade in a difficult course, and Alan came within a few credits of graduating on time. When people around them implied or directly stated that whatever the participants wanted to accomplish was not really within the realm of possibility, the students did not dissent through words, they dissented through action and proved the naysayers wrong. Theme 2: Choosing not to dissent because a successful outcome is unlikely. Another qualitative finding associated with the quantitative results of a negative correlation between self-efficacy and dissent points to the decisions participants made about

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where to exert effort. As evidenced above, accomplishing a goal or task takes energy and effort. My participants discussed deciding when and where to use their effort in an attempt to accomplish their desired goal. If the people to whom the participants are dissenting do not seem likely to change their minds, take positive action, or otherwise help dissenters resolve the issue, most participants did not find it to be worthwhile to engage in dissent. Of all of the participants, Amber most clearly communicated her decision making regarding dissent: So, if it’s something like, we’re not having meetings on Thursday night because everyone drinks, my mind goes to “not everyone drinks on Thursdays, I don’t drink on Thursdays, and I’m part of everyone. I think that is your way of saying that you want to drink on Thursdays, so you can’t attend the meetings.” So that kind of crossed my mind and then, if they do say like, “everyone drinks on Thursdays, we cannot have a meeting”, I’m like okay, “you’re pretty much just saying that we’re not going to have a meeting on Thursdays, there’s no like, you can drink an hour later.” So I’m just kind of like, “I’m not going to argue with this, like my advisor makes the meeting times, she can fight with you on it; whatever.” In this statement, Amber communicated that the more adamant an individual is about their opinion, the less likely she is to even spend her time engaging in the conversation, even if she has strong opinions, and even if her opinions are correct. The term “whatever” was frequently used by participants when they were communicating about the rationale for why they chose not to engage in dissent. “Whatever” translates to “I have neither the time, nor the energy or desire to engage in this discussion with you; you have already made up your mind and I can tell there is no changing it, so I am no longer going to try.” Theme 3: I don’t care about the organization or the work I’m doing. Amber’s response leads into another explanation of why articulated dissent and self- efficacy might be negatively correlated: the presence of a low level of investment in the organization. Sarah spoke about the role that her passion had not only on her willingness to speak up, but also her willingness to put up with things that she disagreed with instead of stating her dissent. In both situations, passion for the topic and care, or the lack thereof, for the organization played an important role. In Sarah’s words: Well, if a problem arose while I was working in dining, I probably would have quit my job. Which is probably why I only had a semester, just because, working in dining, was,

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oh my gosh, the management was horrible. People were so mean to each other and I was just fed up with it. I mean people were mean to each other in my organization too, but I was passionate about it, but I wasn’t passionate about dining and serving people food. And it was really nice having a paycheck, but it was, yeah, just too much, it was too time consuming as well. But I have a job now in another group on campus, which I love doing. If a problem arose in that, my supervisors are really, really, really nice and helpful and I would feel totally comfortable coming to them and being like, “hey I don’t know what to do here.” I guess being passionate helps me get things done more, but if I lack passion, I’ll still do it. In the above statement, Sarah talked about three different types of situations, two that were negative (student organization and working with dining), and one (the new campus job) that was more positive. She chose not to express articulated dissent in her student organization or the dining hall for two different reasons. In terms of her student organization, she was concerned that participating in articulated dissent with leaders or advisors would prevent her from doing something that she enjoyed and was very passionate about. In the dining hall, she was not afraid to share dissent because of consequences; she chose not to communicate her disagreement because she didn’t care about the organization. Her lack of care translated to her disinterest in expending any energy to attempt to make the organization better. When discussing her positive experience, Sarah actually talked about the communicating dissent to her supervisor as a way of asking for help. When she said “hey I don’t know what to do here,” she is both speaking up about a conundrum and asking for help to resolve it. In this instance there is not necessarily the presence of passion, but there is enough comfort and in the organization for concerns to be communicated to those who hold power in hopes that they will do something to remedy the situation. Theme 4: I don’t have to express dissent because someone else will. For all of the participants in the study, choosing to express dissent against the majority or someone in authority had risk associated with it. Many participants discussed their concern related to communicating dissent. They referred to losing friendships and opportunities. They also discussed the act of dissenting as one that requires heightened energy and finesse. Cece most clearly articulated the willingness to not engage in dissent when someone else could do it. In her primary student organization she serves as an executive board member, so she thinks it is

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important to role model desired behaviors to the rest of the organization. In another organization where she is also a member, she explained that the pressure to dissent is different because she does not have as much overall knowledge or investment in the other organization and there are others present who knew more and could speak better to disagreements as they arose. She revealed that her participation in dissent is contextually based and is impacted by the presence of other dissenters. She considers her general role in organizations and groups to fill a need which is otherwise unfilled: I feel like, not my role, but something I just kind of naturally do is, I try to balance things out. So like, I’m kind of all over the place, so I’d be like loud one day and then quiet the next. And like just depending on my mood. My mood is also affected by the situation I’m in. So like, if the mood is overall quiet, I will adjust to that [and be louder], if the mood is overall, like everyone’s speaking out, then I will not speak out because we don’t need that added to it. Given the risk associated with being a dissenter, it’s understandable that when offered the opportunity to defer to others, people who might otherwise dissent recognize when others are dissenting and choose to rest instead of adding to their voice to the dissenting voices. Many of the other participants shared similar sentiments. Sometimes the people they deferred to were officers or advisors in the organization. A few participants also tried to pay attention to when they were communicating their dissent in an attempt to share their concerns while avoiding a confrontation. Confrontation was perceived as negative, understood to be a necessary component of dissent, but viewed as an undesirable consequence, one to be avoided if at all possible. Theme 5: I’m content. Generalized self-efficacy and articulated dissent might be negatively correlated because self-efficacious people are content with their experience in the organization. As mentioned earlier, self-efficacy is developed in four ways: verbal persuasion, vicarious experiences, mastery, and psychological affect. When my participants were getting positive feedback from those in power regarding their actions, they had no reason to disagree. Verbal persuasion (people telling you that you are or would be good at something) is an incredibly powerful tool and can cause individuals to ignore information that is right in front of them or confirm information that is imaginary. When my participants had enough agency to control their potentially problematic situations, they did not experience any incongruence between what they wanted to accomplish

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and their reality. Alan explained this when he discussed his experience with overcoming his challenges with chemistry during his first year of college: When I took the organic chemistry, I couldn’t sit through the lectures; they were at 8 in the morning. I didn’t, you know, I had a hard time getting up my freshman year, I was going out a lot. So, I would just read the book on my own and I would learn. Some of the books typically do a great job of explaining. So, I would just read the book and if I had questions, I would go to the office hours. They [professors] understand that some students are like that. They were very willing to help me in office hours and I did great in the class. And um, so I would say that I never been afraid of a course that people might consider like a weed out course, I look forward to those courses. In this instance, Alan, who participates in articulated dissent with advisors, instructors, and administrators, did not dissent about being an in 8:00 AM class or having to sit through lectures. He found a way to work around the things he disliked about the situation and was able to harness the assistance of the faculty members whose classes he was skipping. Had he faced instructors that were resistant to his learning style or otherwise prevented his ability to effectively grasp the material, he would have participated in articulated instructional dissent as he did in another class. In describing that class, Alan shared the following: So immediately she [the instructor] pitted herself against a lot the class. And um, as the year went on, there were a lot of issues with this professor. And it wasn’t just with guys, it was girls as well. And it got now, a little bit about her background, she was brilliant. She had a Ph.D. in technical writing and she had a J.D. She had her law degree and she was teaching a freshman English class, way over qualified certainly and that has to be frustrating. When you have, those degrees, you don’t want to be teaching freshman English at any school, I don’t care if it’s Harvard; you want to be doing something that your skills and expertise are more suited and you can, you know, actually be passionate about teaching your students. And, um, it got to the point where it was so bad, the class was so unhappy that the entire class, or not the, 80% of the class went and sat down with the chair of the English department to complain about this lady. We got a conference room and we went around in a circle and everyone shared examples. And the chair was like, --, you could just see the look on his face “I never had this before.”

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The difference between Alan’s two experiences is that in the first situation, he could move about his daily life with a sense of agency and accomplishment. In the second, he was prohibited from doing what we wanted to do and that created a different desire in him to participate in articulated dissent. Quantitative Results for Research Question #2 Organizations are made up of a group of individuals. Although all participants in the organization gather under the same connected organizational purpose, how individuals experience the organization is very much dictated by their own unique characteristics and personalities. In addition to personal traits that exist beyond the organization, the organization has its own traditions and practices that impact individual of organizational dissent, decision making, and self-efficacy. The number of participants in the organization, the length of time an individual has been connected to the organization, and whether or not the individual serves in a special leadership role, all have the potential to impact one’s experience with the organization. The second research question assumed that there was a significant correlation between self-efficacy and dissent, and questioned whether the correlation was different based on the role held by the student in the organization. “Does the correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent differ based upon which role (president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, etc.) participant hold in their student organizations?” My prediction related to this question was that there is no difference between one’s level of self-efficacy and one’s expression of dissent based upon one’s role in the organization. Students who participated in the survey were given the option to select from a variety of different roles including the aforementioned, in addition to the positions of committee member, general member, and other. From the results of the initial survey, it was determined that a negative correlation exists between generalized self-efficacy and organizational dissent. More specifically, when breaking the dissent factors into articulated, antagonistic, and displaced, it was determined that there was no correlation between generalized self-efficacy and antagonistic or displaced dissent, but a negative correlation existed between articulated dissent and generalized self-efficacy. In determining the answer to the second research question about whether one’s positional role in the organization affected the correlation between self-efficacy and dissent, I took two different approaches.

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Table 4.4

Means and Standard Deviations for Seven Organizational Positions and Four Measures of Dissent

Position GSE OVED ARTD ANTD DISD ______M SD M SD M SD M SD M DS

President 30.41 3.7 60.86 9.42 16.86 3.6 28.05 5.4 13.68 3.5

Vice President 30.15 3.7 58.61 8.7 17.08 4.6 26.89 3.7 13.32 3.6

Secretary 28.77 2.6 63.17 7.8 18.33 3.3 28.09 4.6 14.573.7

Treasurer 29.05 2.9 58.71 9.1 18.66 3.3 25.70 4.6 14.38 3.9

Committee Member 30.07 3.3 61.46 8.2 19.64 5.0 26.47 4.5 14.15 3.2

General Member 28.29 3.7 63.56 8.3 22.37 4.9 25.72 4.4 13.79 3.2

Other 29.29 3.1 62.2 9.5 18.79 4.5 27.65 4.1 14.19 3.3 Note: GSE=Generalized Self-Efficacy; OVED=Overall Dissent; ARTD = Articulated Dissent; ANTD=Antagonistic Dissent; DISD = Displaced Dissent. Kruskal-Wallis. I first conducted a Kruskal-Wallis procedure to determine if there was a difference in the means between the level of self-efficacy and expression of organizational dissent based on positional type. There was no difference in one’s level of self-efficacy based on one’s role in the organization H =11.989 df 6, P>.05. The average mean score of participants who indicated that they were presidents did not differ greatly from the individuals who indicated that they were treasurers, vice presidents, secretaries, or any other different position. This finding is only the beginning of the puzzle since the question is really about the relationship between self-efficacy and the expression of dissent when looking at organizational positions. Though self-efficacy is a fairly straight forward construct to measure, the presence of three types of expression of dissent, in addition to overall dissent, makes understanding the impact that the positional role in an organization has on one’s expression of dissent a bit more

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complex. I conducted a Kruskal-Wallis One-Way ANOVA to reveal whether the mean average of the expression of overall dissent, articulated dissent, antagonistic dissent, and displaced dissent was different based upon positional role. The results of the Kruskal-Wallis One-Way ANOVA demonstrated a difference in mean score related to position type and overall expression of dissent: H=14.185 df 6, P< .05. Unfortunately, a pairwise comparison of the Kruskal-Wallis did not reveal exactly where the statistically significant mean difference appeared. In terms of a difference between articulated dissent and positional role in the student organization, quantitative analysis substantiated that there were differences between position types and how they engaged in articulated dissent: H=65.59 df 6, P<.05. Significant differences existed between presidents and the general members, presidents and committee members, treasurers and general members, vice presidents and general members, secretaries and general members, committee members and general members, and those who classified themselves as other and general members. General members express articulated dissent more than the rest of the positional counterparts. With antagonistic dissent, quantitative analysis revealed a significant difference between position types in relation to antagonistic dissent: H= 16.702 df 6, P< .05. This difference existed between those who classified themselves as general members and those who classified themselves as presidents. General members participate in antagonistic dissent more than presidents. Lastly, there was no significant difference across position type related to displaced dissent. Refer to table 4.5 for to see a summary of the aforementioned Kruskal-Wallis results. Table 4.5 Summary of Kruskal-Wallis Results Dissent Type H df p Outlier(s) Overall Expression 14.185 6 <.05 Unable to determine Articulated 65.59 6 <.05 General Members Antagonistic 16.702 6 < .05 General Members and Presidents Displaced No significant difference in means

The Kruskal-Wallis results reveal that there is not much of a statistical difference in means related to positional type and one’s participation in dissent, overall or otherwise. In those instances where there were mean differences, the differences appeared as an outlier to the other groups. For example, in looking at articulated dissent, there was no statistically significant

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difference in mean between any of the positions, except general members, which differed from all of the other positions. This makes sense since most of the time articulated dissent is directed to officers in the organization. Since the rest of the positional types in the study are likely to be considered officer positions, the lowest position (general member) would be the most likely member to dissent in an articulated manner. Another place where the difference in means should not be surprising is when looking at the scores of presidents’ participation in antagonistic dissent compared to the scores of the general members. Often times it is assumed that the presidential role is just one role that exists within the context of the organization. The Kruskal-Wallis demonstrates that although presidents likely have leadership counter-parts within the elected or executive board, the perspective remains that they are set apart from other members of the board. So the secretary and treasurer might voice their dissent to each other or other “equal” members of the executive board, but presidents do not have an equivalent group within their organization to which they can dissent, so their mean score is lower. The counter to the presidential position is the general member position. It is fair to presume that the largest type of position in any organization is the general member position. Since general members have the largest group, they have more options than others who hold their same type of power to whom they can express antagonistic dissent. Bivariate correlation. Earlier in this section, I mentioned that I used two different research approaches to determine if there was a difference in the correlation between self-efficacy and dissent based on the positional role that students held in their primary student organizations. Although the Kruskal-Wallis reveals differences in the mean average between position types, that assessment did not answer the question regarding whether the negative correlation between self-efficacy and dissent that exists in the overall sample holds true across position type. For that answer, I had to conduct a bivariate correlation after using statistical software to separate out the participants into position types. While the Kruskal-Wallis discovered some differences in dissent based upon position type in comparison to other positions, the bivariate correlation revealed changes in the presence of the correlation between self-efficacy and overall, articulated, antagonistic, and displaced dissent. For some positions the presence of the negative correlation held true, for other positions, the presence of the negative correlation did not hold true, and for one position, the presence of a

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negative correlation appeared in a different component of dissent than all of the other parts of the study. Therefore my prediction that there would be no difference between the correlation of self- efficacy and the expression of overall dissent based on positional role was incorrect. For the positions of vice president, secretary, and committee member, there was no significant correlation between self-efficacy and any type of organizational dissent. This difference is particularly telling because it did not mimic the outcome of the larger sample. The results of the president and treasurer positions mimicked the negative correlation between self- efficacy and articulated dissent, but there was no correlation between self-efficacy and overall dissent. The results of those who identified as general members mimicked the results of the larger sample, with both a negative correlation between self-efficacy and overall dissent, as well as a negative correlation between self-efficacy and articulated dissent. The participants who classified themselves as other produced a statistically significant negative correlation between generalized self-efficacy and the expression of antagonistic dissent. Table 4.6 details the n for each position as well as the results of the bivariate correlations. Table 4.6 Summary of Bivariate Correlation Results by Organizational Position Position n Correlation Results President 43 Articulated Dissent/Generalized Self Efficacy r = -.558, p<.01 Not significant for Overall Dissent Vice President 46 Not significant

Secretary 27 Not significant

Treasurer 18 Articulated Dissent/Generalized Self-Efficacy r =-.491, p<.05 Not significant for Overall Dissent

Committee Member 56 Not significant

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General Member 64 Articulated Dissent/Generalized Self-Efficacy r = -.308, p<.05 Overall Dissent/Generalized Self-Efficacy r= -.295, p<.05

Other 28 Antagonistic Dissent/Generalized Self-Efficacy r = -.503, p<.01 Not significant for Articulated Dissent/Generalized Self- Efficacy Not significant for Overall Dissent/Generalized Self-Efficacy

Further explanation of the phenomenon via the qualitative process. The quantitative assessment of the above question provides a good measurement of how the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent is realized differently based on different organizational positions. The individuals who participated in the qualitative portion of the study represent a few different organizational roles within their associated primary student organizations. Alan and Amber both most closely associate themselves with the role of president, Cece serves in the category of other, but was recently elected to the position of president for the next semester, and Sarah is a general member in her organization. Although they all sit in different places, there were some themes among their responses which align with the quantitative responses associated with research question number two. The themes that emerged from question two are: (1) the well-being of the organization is at stake; (2) my advisor is a good source of feedback and a safe person to whom I can communicate; and (3) I trust the leaders to make the decision, so I provide feedback to the appropriate people when necessary. Theme 1: The well-being of the organization is at stake. Three of the four student leaders talked about their desire to make sure that the organization was performing at its most effective level. Since these organizations are their primary student organizations, they hold a significant portion of the students’ time, energy, and effort. Well-being is not only related to the presence of the organization, but also how it is perceived on campus by other student organizations and administrators. In a few instances, the student organizations participate in competitions with other schools and so the organizations’ reputation outside of their home institution is also important. As a member of such a group,

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Alan provided an example of when and why he participated in dissent related to preserving the overall well-being of the organization as well as the individuals who are members: A competitor got frustrated when someone wasn’t being , but that’s no reason to be mean because as soon as you are mean, you lose all credibility, and people hate you. I’ve been there myself a few times and it’s not, it doesn’t look good. But absolutely, when it’s done, you have to keep your composure. So this competitor, he came and sat down and he mumbled loud enough that I thought the judges heard, a pretty, not a good word to say in the competition about the judges and I was not happy because the same competitor had done something very similar at our national tournament before. And you just can’t say the F-word like in court, you just can’t. I didn’t yell at him at the break, but I told him, I said “what are you doing?” And I probably shouldn’t have said anything at that point. I should have done my best to calm him down, say “relax, we have more time, you know like regain your composure.” But it was something I had to bring up to the advisors because they needed to say something to him because if he continues to say stuff like that he’s not going to be able to serve in the same role, because you can’t have someone in that role that is saying that kind of stuff. Alan’s example is a little unique because his organization was participating in a competition and basically being scored on its effectiveness. Cece talked about how the impact of the actions and decisions of others within the organization influences her willingness to express dissent, especially if it is going to effect the overall organization: Sometimes I am really impulsive and I’ll just speak out if I feel really strongly about something. That’s rare, I usually think before I speak. It’s just if I’m really riled up about something. I guess the factors that I think about are how many people is this going to affect? What other affect will this action create? So like, is it just going to, I mean is, is it a design thing, where I don’t necessarily like the sweatshirt they are want to design, that’s only me who is affected. But if it’s we decide to put a cap on how many people we’re taking in a pledge class. Like if I disagree, I disagree about it not because of my own personal beliefs, but because of it affecting other people, it’s like the greater good, like I want, I want to do what is best for more people, and so I’ll speak up. Regardless of whether the participants were successful in altering the course of action, they felt compelled to comment when they saw the organizational members making individual or

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collective decisions which put the overall integrity of the organization at risk. Participants were willing to challenge individuals publicly, meet with them privately, and utilize organizational advisors to address behaviors that might have negative consequences for the organization. Theme 2: My advisor is a good source of feedback and a safe person to whom I can communicate. Organizational advisors, sometimes called mentors or coaches, appeared as a frequent theme for several of the interview participants. All organizations at this institution are required to have a faculty or staff member serve as an organizational advisor, but the role that the faculty or staff member has in the organization varies from group to group. At worst, students spoke of advisors being unsupportive and difficult to approach. In these instances, the expression of articulated dissent was negatively impacted. Poor interactions with staff members in advisor roles also greatly impacted the students self-efficacy, specifically related to tasks associated with the student organization. At best, students saw their advisors as knowledgeable about not only the organization, but also the university at large. The advisors encouraged them to try new things, utilize campus resources, and stay the course. Amber spoke very highly of the experience she had with her organizational advisor. In her first example she explained how she got to know the advisor by virtue of attending a welcoming activity and introducing herself: I think it was right before classes started, we have a thing called an ice cream social, and a staff member, she said like “hey we’re going to start this new group, if you’re interested come say hi.” I was like “well, I don’t know anyone here and I don’t know any organizations and I’m a new student, so what’s there to lose?” So I went up to talk to her and she was really cool, so I was just like “yeah, I’ll do it, whatever.” (laughs) and in spring after being a part of the group, the big group like helped with a task and met her a few times when I went to the meetings, she said that we were going to get an Exec. Board and I just let her know that I’d be interested and she recommended that I run for president, so I did. In the next statement Amber expressed the difference between a previous organizational experience and her current organizational experience. She was able to identify how the advisor in her previous organization was not helpful in resolving conflict and/or bringing the group together under a common cause:

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Like half the team liked each other, and the other half didn’t and when we tried to mix, it was not a good mix and we had 8 girls on the team. And I couldn't talk to my coach because she used to be a team member the year before. So there was a big issue between team and coach and at the same time. So, if there was just kind of like small problems that bothered me, I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about. In this next statement, Amber continued to discuss the differences between her two organizations, but this time she is able to identify how the advisor made her new organization more appealing than her old organization: She is really involved with us, but there is not a weird connection with her and our group. Like, she really passionately, just loves students. So, it's really nice to know who I can talk to, that solved my issue of not knowing who to talk to if there’s a problem. In addition to using her advisor to address organizational needs, Amber also sought out this staff member when she had a personal concern regarding a course she was taking and was looking for ways to improve her performance: I was like “Advisor, I don’t know what to do” and she was like “assistance is here”. And she made recommendations, like maybe checking with the learning center, actually talking to my professors, sending emails, like maybe finding a study group, or asking if there were little break off sessions from the larger classes, there were just things that I had never thought about. Advisors served as a space where students could dissent and not be concerned about negative consequences. Sometimes advisors served in the role of receiver of articulated dissent about the organization. Presidents generally participated in articulated dissent when they did not feel like their actions were going to be effective enough to accomplish the desired outcome. In different situations, advisors seemed to be in the position of receiving antagonistic dissent. This seemed to occur when there was a sustained relationship that appeared to have more of a collegial partnership. As the partnership moved to a friendship, the advisor could also be found serving as the receiver of displaced dissent and providing general support. Theme 3: I trust the leaders to make the decision, so I provide feedback to the appropriate people when necessary. All of the participants spoke about the role that being new to an organization or another setting had on their expression of dissent. For those who eventually took a leadership position in

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their primary organization, prior to assuming their position, the way in which they communicated dissent or displeasure was different. All of the interview participants joined their primary student organizations early in their time at the institution. For Alan and Sarah, they knew that membership into their organizations was something they wanted to pursue upon being admitted to the institution. Although Amber and Cece were not as absolute about organizational involvement prior to attending college, in their first semesters they become engrossed in their organizations. In the midst of the acclimation to the primary organizations, all four participants worked to learn the environment, the culture of the organization, and how to communicate their disagreement with organizational practices. As the other participants, Alan, Amber, and Cece, transitioned to leadership roles in their organizations, Sarah remained in her general member role, but gained leadership credibility by becoming a sophomore who continued in the organization. Despite her acquired leadership status by virtue of her sophomore standing, the lack of a formal leadership position resulted in Sarah relying on organizational leaders to communicate concerns to organizational advisors. She did not see it has her role to participate in articulated dissent in order to make changes in the organization: Well, I mean like generally, I mean, it kind of depends on the problem. When problems would arise, it would be more the juniors, seniors, team captains who would… I wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable saying “oh we need to have an extra practice” or something like that. But then there were other times, like one time one of my teammates was going through a rough time, I talked with my advisors and made sure they knew about that. Or if people were upset, I felt comfortable being like, “how is your day going?” The more performance problems, like if a certain technique wasn’t working, I would do my best, but I just felt more like it was the responsibility of the organizational leaders and the advisors. Participants connected their level of knowledge about the organization to the validity of their expression of dissent. In organizations where they were serving as a participant, but not necessarily as an organizational leader, their dissent was less frequent and less impassioned. The interviewees assumed that because in the organizations where they served in a formal leadership role, they were doing the best they could for the organizations, the students who were in leadership roles in other organizations were also doing the best that they could for that particular

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organization. Cece and Amber both talked about it in regards to their non-primary student organizations. Cece: Meetings for my other organization can sometime go, can sometimes drag a little bit more than meetings for my primary organization. This is just because I’ve been behind the scenes of my primary organization and I know what’s going to happen and I know the intended result of our workshops or our announcements and I kind of know what’s coming. Whereas, my other organization sometimes the announcements just kind of come at me out of the blue. I didn’t know they were being formulated, and not that that’s a problem, I mean I’m sure that general members of my primary organization feel that way about the things we announce. Amber: But like with the intramural team, we’re kind of going through an issue like practice Tuesdays/Thursdays or Mondays/Wednesdays. So, that’s something. I disagree with practice Tuesdays/Thursdays. So, I give my opinions to the Exec. Board. “I think we should have these days because of these reasons.” And if they disagree they just kind of go “well, we’re just trying to figure that out.” Serving as an organizational leader in different organizations assisted the participants in appreciating the context that might exist in situations where they were not in an elected or selected role and thus impacted when, where, why, and to whom they were expressing dissent. Similar to other decisions regarding dissent, participants thought about how important the topic in which they were expressing dissent was to the overall organization. Participants also reflected on how likely they were to be successful in getting their dissatisfaction or problem addressed. In their primary organizations, they felt their dissent could make a larger impact than in their other organizations. This difference was due to not only organizational role, but also how much status each participant had in their respective primary organizations; the more clout, the more willing they were to particulate in dissent. Results for Research Question #3 The reason why the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent is so important to me is because I believe in the power of dissenters to change the world. Without dissenters who challenge leaders and the status quo, the shortcomings in our organizations and the injustices of our society do not get addressed. Looking specifically at student leaders and how they express dissent in their student organizations provides a lens into how these two constructs interact with

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each other in a particular context. The results from research questions one and two aid in explaining the phenomena, but leave another important question unanswered which leads me to the third research question. “Does experience with dissenting in one space correspond with one’s willingness to dissent in another?” The literature surrounding self-efficacy discusses four ways that self-efficacy is developed: mastery, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and psychological affect (Bandura, 1997). So, theoretically, if people spend time participating in dissent and are successful in getting the issues they see resolved, then they will feel better about their participation in dissent and continue to do it. Similarly, if people spend time participating in dissent and are unsuccessful in getting the issues they see resolved, then they will feel worse about their participation in dissent and reduce the frequency in which they participate in the act. In this final portion of the findings chapter, I will explain how the interview participants described how their participation in dissent inside and outside of their organization influences their willingness to dissent in different venues. There is value in dissent. All of the participants agreed that it is important for people to speak up about an issue in which they disagree. The participants also agreed that voting is a good way to express their opinions about what was happening in the world and that it is everyone’s responsibility to engage in actions that produce a better society. The participants were not unaware of the challenges of expressing dissent. They easily recognized the reasons why someone might choose not to dissent including, selfish ambition, a lack of belief that the dissent was going to result in productive change, and fear. My interviewees discussed dissenting behaviors both inside and outside of the primary organization. I also asked questions regarding expressing dissent against people who were older, the same age, and younger than the interviewees, people of the same and opposite sex, and the majority or someone who held more power than the respondents. These questions revealed not only the perspective that dissenting in one place influences choosing to dissent in another, but also how the experiences that the respondents have had influence their current dissenting practices, which touch different parts of their lives including, with family, friends, public officials, employers, and co-workers.

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Theme 1: Family. Experiences with immediate family members influenced the development of self- efficacy, as well as the expression of dissent. As the first contact that the participants had with other people, parents, siblings, and other immediate family members played an instrumental role in helping students understand the rules and guidelines around dissent. Amber, who uses her opinions about the adamancy of someone’s opinion in order to decide if dissenting is worth her effort, candidly discussed her first experiences with dissent regarding religion: I think a lot of that developed as a kid. I grew up in a sort of Christian home and I’m not religious. And I would always have questions about why things were a certain way and like try to compare other religions to Christianity, what makes them wrong compared to Christianity, and I felt like as a kid, I was always the wrong one. I was the one that was going to burn in Hell for asking questions. So for me, it just kind of got to the point where I was like well, this topic can’t even be answered to; I think I was like 13 at the time. I learned grownups or people who are very strong on topics like this. I feel like thus far the conversation I tried to have against adamant people, I just kind of don’t get an open reaction, I get a very closed [reaction], a you’re wrong, this is what you should be believing reaction. ---when someone is really adamant, I let them believe what they want and don’t try to push their thoughts. My experience at school changed my interaction with my family. For students who had limited experience with dissenting prior to coming to college, getting involved in a student organization and participating in dissent with others influenced how students engaged in dissent with their family members. In some cases family members became a wonderful source for displaced dissent, but in other cases, the experience of dissenting in school made the students more comfortable in dissenting with family members. Cece discussed how her student organization experiences impacted her relationship with her dad: I was a lot more timid with my dad’s side of the family. But now that I’m in a leadership position in my student organization, now that I have experience speaking out against them, I’m way more willing to call him out, even on the smallest things. We’re similar in everything we do and so we both have a similar kind of biting sense of humor. And I use to kind of just let it happen, I was like “well, that’s my dad, too bad.” Now, I’ll be like “oh, shut up.” And it definitely, it definitely got a lot stronger when I became more of a

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leader in my organization because now, you know, I understand, I’ve been in, in kind of his position of being an authority. VBR: Great. What was his reaction? When you changed from... A: He loved it. He loved it. Because now, now we can just go back and forth and kind of just like make fun of each other, instead of him making fun of me and me getting dramatic and like “how mean is he being to me?”, you know? I mean granted I was a young teenager, of course I took everything personally. But now, now I fight back. I remember he said, you’re, you’re just a lot more you now. I was like “I guess, if this is me, then I guess.” But yeah, he loved it. He ate it up. My family is my sounding board; my place for displaced dissent. All four participants talked about their family members as people who they can seek out to share moments of dissent within their student organization or other venues. None of the participants expected that their family members would be able to help them resolve the organizational issue, but were rather seeking the opportunity to talk about issues in a safe confidential space, or get perspective about whether or not the feelings of the participant were justified. When Sarah was having a negative experience in her student organization, she spoke to her parents about it because they are people whom she trusts to listen to her perspective in a supportive way: Well, I mean I disagreed with the last statement of my organization and I talked with my parents a lot about it. Just because they were like one easy first. I mean when I was in the organization, I didn’t have a lot of time to talk to people outside of it. I mean, not that I couldn’t, I mean, my closest friends were there. So, I was like “outside of that I could talk to my parents about it.” Um..did you ask what the result was? VBR: Yeah like, why you choose to do it and what the result was Yeah just understanding, they sided with me which was nice, and so... VBR: Did they offer advice? Yeah. Although, it kind of, I mean the thing is that it’s kind of hard like when you talk to someone, I mean my parents have been like growing up, have been like raising me my whole life, so they like know about my world, but like they still don’t know like everything that is politically correct and not politically correct. Like sometimes it doesn’t

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really help, it was more like a venting thing, because they weren’t really in a position to give me actual advice. For my college-aged participants, their family group is the most consistent group of people to which they interact. They learned something about dissent from their family members. Sometimes, like in Amber’s case, they learned that dissenting could lead to negative consequences like having to listen to all of the reasons why what you are requesting is incorrect or immoral. On the other hand, like with Cece, participating in dissent with family members improved the overall relationship because everyone is free to authentically express their feelings about their experiences. Family members also serve as a good space for displaced or displaced dissent for either the purpose of garnering feedback or just to serve as an active listener. Theme 2: Friends. The participants in the study all provided examples of times when they experienced some sort of dissent with their friends. Like family members, sometimes friends were a safe place to communicate displaced dissent. Unlike family members, however, friends also served as a space for antagonistic dissent. Participating in antagonistic dissent did not necessarily result in an improvement in the status quo, but gave the participants an opportunity to share the experience with someone else who was having a similar experience. Sarah talked about participating in antagonistic dissent with her roommate, who was not only a member in the same student organization, but also engaged in social experiences with a mutual group of friends. In situations where Sarah disagreed with either something happening in the student organization or within the friend group, she shared those thoughts with her roommate in a different way than she communicated with other people. My friend lives in Cleveland so, we went to Cleveland at her house and we went to Sea World and the zoo for a few days. And it was me, my friend who lives in Cleveland and then, two of our friends and my roommate. My roommate was trying to decide if she was going to transfer or not, so she was only there for part of the time. And she agreed with me on most things. My other friends, there’s a big difference in what you’re going to want to do when you’re paying for something, versus your parents are paying for something. I paid for the plane ticket, I paid for Sea World and the zoo, and I paid for all that. And they were like “let’s go and have these fancy dinners every night.” And I was like, “or we could not, we could eat normal food.” Also at Sea World and at the zoo, I

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noticed the way that they enjoyed the locations. They wanted to run and see as much as possible, while me and my roommate wanted to stay back and be like “let’s enjoy the moment here.” I don’t really know how I dealt with it other than being pretty frustrated when my roommate wasn’t there because I was like “well I can’t say anything.” If I would try to say something, it would get shot down. When my roommate was there it was a lot better because there was someone else who kind of, we both still were like “okay fine, whatever” but, at least I had someone to share in that with me. I engage in dissent differently with people of my opposite sex, than I do with people of my same sex. Most of the participants discussed engaging in dissent with their same sex friends in a different way than they engaged in dissent with their opposite sex friends. Their admission of this difference was reluctant. I could hear the reluctance in their voices as they described their experiences. Alan actually went so far to say that he did not engage in dissent differently with his male friends than he did with his female friends, but when he told his story, it revealed a difference that was palpable. A team we were playing violated a rule and it caught me off guard. I made a big mistake in not advocating the way I should have because I was caught off guard. When I got outside my team had already decided that they were going to go and inform the judges. And so I was not happy, and I, I [went to] my counterpart who is a girl, I said “why’d you guys do this?” And she got mad at me for blaming her because it wasn’t her decision. It was the team's decision, but she was just, she’s my counterpart and I kind of took it out on her. We have a relationship, kind of, outside of the organization, so I had to very quickly; I guess in that circumstance, I did kind of back off and apologize. I sent a text out to the team and I apologized to everybody and said “I kind of lost my cool”, and I specifically apologized to her. VBR: Given another person, given another person that maybe you don’t know outside of the organization do you think that you would have apologized? No. I wouldn’t have. I sent the apology to the whole team. But don’t think I would have gone and like, really went to those lengths to make sure it was okay, if we didn’t have the kind of ….. VBR: And if it were another guy?

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No. probably not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Guys are to me guys are much more easily, much more able to get over stuff like that. You know, I think back to high school. That story about my best friend (we engaged in a physical confrontation) and we’re still best friends. To me, guys can yell at each other and you know punch each other on the shoulder and laugh it off, it’s like nothing ever happened. But I mean girls are wired differently. Their brains work in a different way. Their emotional center is, or the neural network is tied to their emotional center in a much more proficient way than they are in men, or like what I mean by that is more things go through the emotional center. Despite Alan’s best attempt at responding to men and women in the same way when he has a dissenting point of view, he holds an underlying assumption that men and women receive critique and engage in dissent in different ways. He appears to value relationships with both men and women, but he recognizes that in order to sustain those relationships, he may need to take different approaches when engaging in dissent, even if it is not his natural inclination. As a space for displaced dissent, friends offer a perspective different from my family. Both friends and family offered a space for the interview participants to express displaced dissent. As reminder, displaced dissent is when people communicate their disagreement about a decision or situation to someone other than a peer who shares their same status (antagonistic) in the organization or someone who has more authority (articulated) in the organization. While both friends and family members of the respondents serve as a space for displaced dissent, the general reactions to the respondent from family members tended to be more “wait and see” while friends tended to be a bit more directive about what the respondents should do. Amber and Cece provided good examples of the differences. Amber: It wasn’t an actual disagreement, I was annoyed by one of the people in the organization and I went home and I was still kind of annoyed and I live with my boyfriend, we have been dating for over 3.5 years. I went home and he asked me about why I was so sad, so I just told him “this student in the organization bothers me” and why this person bothers me. And the result of the conversation--I guess he listened to me and was like “well, maybe you should talk to him or you know, stop making a big deal out of it.” Cece: My mom definitely encourages me [to speak up] less than my friend. So my friend, I think I’ve told you a couple of times, she’s just a spit-fire. And she just

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encourages me to speak up for myself all of the time. And that’s why I go to both of them at the same time because if my mom is saying that I need to speak up, then I know that I am doing something wrong, by not saying anything. But most of the time, they both just encourage me to do whatever I feel like is appropriate for the situation. I’d say that my friend encourages me to speak up 75% of the time when I tell her something. And then my mom probably encourages me like 50% of the time. And I mean, it’s based off of what they hear so, I feel like that definitely contributes to it. When talking about participating in dissent with their friends, students reflected a different level of concern regarding the importance of maintaining the relationship. Although all relationships are voluntary, family relationships were perceived to be more sustainable and reliable and thus there was a different level of certainty regarding the likely response of family members. Many of the participants talked about how they knew that participating in displaced dissent with their parents provided a space to just vent their frustration or concern over whatever was happening. Only the most trusted of friends were really privy to the same level of honesty that family members received regarding organizational dynamics. Generally parents were able to offer an “adult” perspective about whatever the student was experiencing, while friends were seen as having more of an ability to provide a more college-aged peer view. Theme 3: Public officials, employers, and co-workers. The participants in the interview portion of the study were ranged in age from 20-22. Most respondents felt as if it was easier to dissent against someone who was their age or younger, but more difficult to dissent against someone who was older or held more power in the organization than the respondent. All of the cases where the respondent participated in dissent with someone who was older were related to an employer or a coworker. Although the age of the recipient of dissent influenced how the dissent was communicated, it did not prevent it from happening altogether. Amber discussed how she handled dissenting against an older co-worker who was challenging her ability to effectively do her job: I used to work in a grocery store, and I was not necessarily a supervisor, but I was a trainer for the rest of the store. And I was training a bagger and the cashier, cashiers were typically older, another cashier didn’t like how I was training them [the bagger and trainee cashier]. Like, I was being too lenient, you know whatever. And he started

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causing a fuss, “I don’t like the way that you’re training.” Fine. Like, whatever, I’ll ignore you. I’m that kind of thinker, like if it makes sense, fine. But, when you start causing a fuss in front of customers, it’s an issue. So, I said something to the store manager. He [the manager] intervened in the situation. I feel like that situation went over better because the cashier lightened up and I was able to continue working while those two worked out whatever. Cece explained how the way that she engages in dissent with co-workers or superiors that are older than her is different than with people her age or younger: For the most part, retail is run as such a tight machine, so quick, so easy that there are not many chances to disagree, but there were a couple of times when a customer would come in and I would, I would, I would not agree with how we interacted with them. And you know, confronting someone who is older than you, I feel like, like I said about someone who has more power than you or who may not know you as well, I feel like to have to be extra polite and just choose your language very carefully. So, whenever I spoke to her [a manager] about like, she scheduled me for too long a couple times or she scheduled me for a day I had already asked off, then. You know no major disagreements, but I, I needed to speak up. I would approach her to um say “hey, I want to talk to you about this.” Whereas with someone younger than me, or someone my age, I feel like I’d be a little more impromptu about it. I might not carve out a specific time to speak to someone who is, you know, younger than me. Like I would never carve out a time if one of my sister’s friends had a problem with me, like I’d just be like “alright, let’s talk about it” immediately. I feel like that might be a generational thing too. People my age and younger tend to want to get things out of the way when they come up, but yeah, with people older than me, I’m definitely a little more respectful. Previous experience with dissent, either positive or negative, influences future decisions to participate in dissent. I have already detailed how there is a negative correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent, and more specifically articulated dissent. Information from the interviewees revealed a connection between previous experiences with dissent and current or future tendencies to participate in dissent. This finding is in line with the literature related to self- efficacy development. The participants in this study generally started out with a belief in their

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ability for their actions to influence their outcomes, this includes in the area of dissent, but through a series of negative outcomes, regardless if there were also positive outcomes, the willingness to express articulated dissent was impacted. Amber shared a story which continues to impact when and how she communicates dissent: So, I worked in a kitchen in my hometown, same grocery store, they had a restaurant. And my manager…..[I]did not have any good words for her. And not long before I left the job, she started to get really… I’m trying to find a term for it, I always---“bitchy.” Just a lot of really inappropriate things. And, I said something to my Aunt Kerri because she worked in the kitchen with me. I was just kind of getting some ideas “like is it reasonable to go to her, or should I go to a higher power, like talking to the manager of the section of the store?” And she [the manager] came in and she heard me talking. And I was expecting, if she showed up, and she heard it, I didn’t think she’d be mad at me, I thought she would just go “okay, there is an issue”.… They heard her screaming at me on the other side of the store. I thought I was trying to solve the situation and I guess I made it worse. Amber went on to say how the previous situation impacted her ability to dissent in future situations with other people who are older or hold more power. I feel like it impacted me a lot, honestly, um I think that is why I kind of go more silent than speaking about it unless I really feel like it is a problem. Just because of I feel like a lot of times when you try to say something to people, you don’t get a positive reaction. They feel like you’re attacking them, and I don’t like that. I don’t feel like I attack people. I don’t feel like I’m that aggressive of a person. (laughs). So, I typically stay quiet unless I really, really feel like it's a problem. I think that’s why I try not to talk to people my age about it. I straight go to the source or like someone they are connected to, a respected source, to come up with things. Just because, especially with that experience in the kitchen with my boss, like, that experience has made me go “okay, I am not going to question anybody else, like, I’m either going to do it or I’m not.” Alan was also able to talk about how his previous experience of participating in dissent informed his willingness to keep dissenting. VBR: I’m curious about if your level of success in articulating dissent in one area of your life, impacts your willingness to articulate dissent in another area of your life.

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I Um. I would again probably say, probably not. I’m going to just. I’m going to speak my mind if I feel like I have to. And you know if it goes well, then good. If it doesn’t, I’ll try again, you know. But, I guess that’s, that’s just kind of a personality thing. I don’t really. I’m just kind of confident in that kind of stuff in general, so it doesn’t really matter if people, because like chances are...hahaha. this is kind of vain, but, if I, it takes a, like if I disagree with something, even if people don’t see… if people don’t see it from my perspective, I usually tend to still think that I’m right. Alan’s experience with dissent and his resulting self-efficacy around participating in dissent has encouraged him to write letters communicating his disagreement to people who have authority in an organization or society. He first wrote a letter to an administrative office at his university about student disciplinary policies. Something that’s been weighing on me, I think for the last three years. I finally took the time to write the email. The judicial system at this university is unconstitutional. There’s no due process. But I finally wrote an email to one of the directors of the program in it and, honestly, she probably didn’t read it. I would hope that she did. I would like to have faith in humanity because, just because the court has ruled previously they don’t have to have a just system, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t, you know….. You’ve got kids that got kick of school for rape. Sure it wasn’t proven in court, but you got kicked out of a university for rape. And it’s a----it’s a big deal you know, so I wrote this letter disagreeing with these policies. Writing a letter to someone in the student judicial system is not the only time Alan expressed his dissent in writing. In another interview he spoke about writing a letter to two different members in Congress. You know, we’re still a free country, we still have , we still have freedom of opinion, you can choose to believe in whatever you want, right or wrong, but unless you express that, if you just sit on that opinion, and then you know everyone complains about what’s not being done or what is being done, then that’s just kind of crazy. Although I will say, I have written two letters this year to our state senators or one to our senator and one to a congressman, and I haven't gotten responses. And it said, like on their site, we will respond to you and it’s been months, and I haven’t gotten responses.

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Sometimes one person isn’t enough. It really isn’t, it goes unnoticed but. The more people, if you, sure, just one person goes unnoticed, but I’m certain that my opinion of what I wrote about was, I wasn’t the only person, so if 10 people had written that day, you know, it’s ten times more powerful of a message than just one. The final research question revealed that the participants in my study were able to talk about dissent in spaces outside of their student organizations. Cece communicated an explicit connection between her dissent development in her student organization and her willingness to express dissent to her father. She identified that learning to be comfortable with dissent in her student organization made her more willing to dissent in her family unit. For Cece, her father was receptive to the change in her disposition and welcomed the new dynamic to their relationship. Cece’s father served as one of many examples of adults who encouraged the students to participate in dissent when an issue arose. Alan spoke several times about how his organizational advisors guided him in his dissenting experiences either through supporting his dissenting endeavors or helping him reflect on whether what he was dissenting about was really worth the act of dissention. There were also quite a few examples of older adults, in the workplace, in society, and in student organizations, who either created environments where dissent was not permitted or punished students when they communicated their dissent. In those environments when there was not enough of a quality relationship between the student and the power holder, the students, for the most part remained silent out of fear of punishment and/or a lack of belief that their dissent was going to make a difference. Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter addressed the findings regarding all three primary research questions: (1) What is the correlation between an individual’s level of self-efficacy and one’s experiences in offering an opinion that is contrary (i.e. dissent) to a person in authority or the majority sentiment?; (2) Does the correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent differ based upon which role (president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, etc.) participants hold in their student organization?; and (3) Does experience with dissenting in one space correspond with one’s willingness to dissent in another? Through the use of quantitative data I discovered a negative correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent. The negative correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent is due to the negative correlation

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between self-efficacy and articulated (communicating dissent with someone in authority) dissent. Interviews with four respondents revealed that this phenomenon exists for a few reasons including: (1) a difference between doing and telling; (2) a desire not to waste one’s energy; (3) a lack of care of concern about the organization; (4) the presence of others who are willing to dissent; and (5) being content with the current situation. Once a negative correlation was established, with the second research question I sought to determine if there was a difference in the correlation between self-efficacy and dissent based upon positional role in the organization. The Kruskal-Wallis analysis revealed a difference in mean scores related to responses regarding self-efficacy and dissent depending on positional role. Once the positions were separated out and a bivariate correlation was conducted to determine if the correlation between self-efficacy and organizational dissent was negative regardless of positional role, the analysis revealed that the statistically significant negative correlation was only true for presidents, treasurers, general members, as well as those in the role of other. For those who designated themselves as “other” there was actually a statistically significant negative correlation between self-efficacy and antagonistic dissent. For the remaining positions, there was no significant correlation between self-efficacy and dissent. Qualitative interviews revealed some factors play a role in the existence of this phenomenon including: (1) the well-being of the organization being at stake; (2) the presence or lack thereof of quality organizational advisors; and (3) high trust in organizational leaders. With the third research question I sought to figure out if the act of dissenting in one space would translate to another space. This question was purely qualitative and therefore did not have corresponding quantitative data to accompany it. Results from the student interviews portion revealed that while dissent is contextually based, both positive and negative experiences have an impact on the decision to dissent in different situations. Students participated in all three types of dissent, articulated, antagonistic, and displaced. Supervisors, administrators, and public officials were most often the recipients of articulated dissent; truly trusted friends were most often receiving antagonistic dissent, while participants sought out parents for a safe space to participate in displaced dissent. The results from this study both support current literature regarding the construct of self- efficacy and the construct of dissent, and reveal a connection between the two constructs. Although the population studied was college students, the connection between current literature

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and the results of the study strengthen the ability for the results to be considered across multiple contexts. Furthermore, these results pave the way for additional studies that can further explain more of the idiosyncrasies of the phenomena. In the next chapter, I will discuss the results and detail how they have implications for a variety of entities including faculty members and administrators, politicians, as well as organizational leaders. I will also include recommendations for future studies.

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CHAPTER V DISCUSSION, LIMITATIONS, FUTURE RESEARCH

Dialogical thinkers such as Aristotle, Mead, Gadamer, Dewey, and Habermas have all emphasized the role that communication has on the human experience (Antonio & Kellner, 1992). In the operation of a democracy, such as the United States, communication creates the opportunity for resolving societal problems with the aim of freedom for the citizenry. Dialogic relationships, relationships where meaning making is contingent upon interaction with those who have different viewpoints than one’s self, are present in most human interactions. The space between the individuals making meaning may be about small topics such as which way the toilet paper should be hung or large topics such as the requirements voters have to meet in order to vote in an election. Dissent, both organizational and otherwise, is evidence of dialogical interaction. Though dialogical interaction presumes an even exchange between two parties, it does not account for unseen dynamics that influence the exchange of ideas. There are always potential consequences to the participation in dissent. Individuals have to consider organizational and political dynamics when choosing to dissent. Sometimes individuals choose to engage in dissent with an organizational authority figure or verbal majority, and sometimes they do not. In an attempt to understand why some people engage in dissent and others do not, I sought to investigate if the level of people’s self-efficacy impacted their expression of and participation in organizational dissent. I assumed that the level of one’s self-efficacy would influence one’s willingness to participate in dissent, but I could only find one study to support this belief. Parker (1993) did find a positive correlation, but it was based upon the level of control her respondents felt they had in the decision making process, not on their level of self-efficacy alone. For my project, I hoped to find a statistically significant correlation; I assumed, if it existed, it would be positive. I pursued the question about the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent, and in the process, uncovered a negative correlation between the two constructs. To say that I was surprised by the correlation is an understatement. I ran the data twice in order to make sure that it was correct. Any uncertainty I had about the quantitative data dissipated as soon as I began conducting the student interviews. Their stories not only confirmed the statistics produced through the survey

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results, but also provided excellent examples of how dissent is enacted by students in their student organizations, institutions of higher education, and daily lives. One might assume that since the sample in this study is student organizational participants the results might not be transferable to different populations or organizational settings. I contend that though students might be managing different responsibilities than their non-student counterparts, the notions around generalized self-efficacy and organizational dissent are broad and inclusive. As a note, both scales used in the study, ODS and GSE, have previously been used with populations that were not in the traditional 18-22 college student age range. The students in the study, like all of us, live in a complex world and are members of complex organizations. The students’ individual answers composed a picture that broadened what is currently known about how self-efficacy interacts with expressions of dissent. Many of the findings and much of the discussion about the results offer an explanation for the dynamics that exist in all sorts of organizations. Educational leaders, whether they be in a university setting or a P-12 school can benefit from this study. Educational entities are both facilitators and participants in organizational experiences. In classrooms, faculty groups, administrative teams, parent/teacher councils, etc., schools and universities provide the space for membership to an organization. Beyond the school walls, schools organizations are members in other organizations like school districts, national associations, and state agencies. As you read through this section, I encourage you to think about organizations in the broadest sense possible. Discussion of the Results This study suggests that there is a negative correlation between generalized self-efficacy and the expression of organizational dissent. A negative correlation means that the higher the score in one construct the lower the score in the other. In terms of this study, the more self- efficacy someone has, the lower their expression of organizational dissent. Since there are three types of organizational dissent, displaced, antagonistic, and articulated, it is important to be specific about where the negative correlation exists. The negative correlation exists between the Organizational Dissent Scale at-large and the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), and more specifically the (ODS) factors related to articulated dissent. When separated out, there is no significant correlation between (GSE) and antagonistic dissent or displaced dissent in the broad sample of participants. The negative statistical characteristic of the relationship between self-

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efficacy and dissent has implications that must be considered by organizational participants and leaders, regardless of whether they are working with students or other stakeholders. Part of the reason why the finding of a negative correlation is surprising is because the act of saying something or communicating that there is a problem is frequently perceived as doing something to address the problem. Since self-efficacy is the belief in one’s actions to affect one’s desired outcomes, when self-efficacy is high, individuals initiate actions to accomplish their goals. As long as individuals feel that their actions will be able to produce positive results, they will pursue this route (Arslan, 2012). Ironically, this finding implies that there is a belief among respondents that telling someone else that there is a problem is not perceived in the same way as actually doing something to resolve the problem. The expression of dissent is a way to communicate to other people that there is a problem, so that they can assist in the resolution (Parker, 1993). This is not to say that individuals who participate in dissent are not also self- efficacious, but it is to say that their self-efficacy about solving a problem or addressing a situation is lower when they are engaged in dissent; if it were higher, they would just work to resolve the problem on their own. Sometimes when the student interviewees determined that they could not produce their desired results on their own, they expressed articulated dissent, and sometimes they did not. One of the reasons why students chose not to participate in articulated dissent was their lack of belief that their articulation of dissent could result in their desired outcomes (Arslan, 2012; Dugan, 2011). If the desired outcome was to make their organizational experience better, but the perception was that through speaking up their organizational experience would be worse, then the students would not dissent because that act would not result in the achievement of their desired outcomes. For this reason, organizational leaders should not assume that because they are not hearing dissent from people in the lower part of the organization everyone is content. It may just be that organizational members do not have enough faith in organizational leaders to think that they will do something about the problem even if it is brought to their attention. These feelings might be the result of previous experiences with offering a dissenting opinion and not seeing any evidence that it was taken seriously by the recipient(s). A negative correlation between self-efficacy and dissent is not all bad news for organizations. Sometimes the negative correlation occurs because individuals are completely content with their experience in the organization. The organizational members’ expectations of

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their experience match their actual experiences; they are getting positive feedback from organizational leaders, and feel positive that their contribution to the organization makes a difference. Of course, as mentioned earlier, it’s never a good idea to assume that lack of dissent equals contentment, so organizational leaders should talk with members about their perceptions of the organization in order to gain the best understanding of members’ experiences. Variation in the Correlation across Organizational Positions Students who participated in the online survey and students who participated in the in- person interviews were all instructed to use the organization that they considered to be their primary student organization. Similar to the results of the first research question, my hypothesis was that there would be no difference between positions. I assumed, wrongfully so, that if there was a positive relationship between generalized self-efficacy and the expression of organizational dissent, it would hold true across individuals regardless of their position. It was not a good decision to formulate that hypothesis because literature has already asserted that both self-efficacy and dissent are contextually based (Bandura, 1997). Simply having self-efficacy in one situation does not automatically equate to having self-efficacy in another. Similarly, participating in organizational dissent in one organization does not mean that one will participate in organizational dissent in a different organization. Refer to Table 3.4 for an explanation of organizational positions. General members. The negative correlation between self-efficacy and dissent was maintained among participants who noted their organizational position as “general member.” It is easy to assume that general members, by virtue of their role, have less power in the organization than the other roles. General members have a reduced ability to accomplish organizational tasks on their own. If there is a problem in the organization, general members have no choice but to either communicate the problem to organizational leaders, stay silent, or leave the organization. Since the participants in this study identified themselves as general members in their primary student organizations, they continue to be members which means they either are content with their experience or communicate dissent to organizational leaders when a situations arise. Students in the “other” category. Although it is difficult to ascertain exactly why people in the role of “other” selected that as their position, it is fair to assume that they felt like none of the other positions were similar

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enough to their actual role in the organization. The negative correlation between self-efficacy and dissent and the participants who self-selected the “other” option did not hold true. Statistical analysis did produce a negative correlation between generalized self-efficacy and antagonistic dissent among participants in this category. As a reminder, antagonistic dissent is the dissent that occurs when individuals communicate their dissent to others who hold similar authority in the organization. Sometimes antagonistic dissent is perceived as negative or ineffective because it is not aimed at the decision makers. In this instance however, antagonistic dissent may serve as a way to build coalitions in order to accomplish a desired outcome (Garner, 2009, Page, 2010). Since the people in the “other” position are likely to have less traditional authority than leaders in the president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer roles, and less numerical power than committee and general members, it is possible that they need to seek the support of similarly low-powered members in order to get the attention of the traditional organizational leaders and enact change. It is plausible that individuals in the other category utilize a charismatic form of authority (Hoy & Miskell, 2013) in order to win other groups to their side. Vice presidents, secretaries, committee members. When examining students who held more hidden positions, specifically the roles of vice president, secretary, and committee member there was no correlation between their level of generalized self-efficacy and expression of organizational dissent. I posit that this is because these leaders potentially do not expect to control the overall outcomes of their organization. Without this expectation of control, their self-efficacy in the organization is not threatened and thus they do not feel the same inclination to dissent, resulting in the correlation between the two constructs being nonexistent. This is similar to what Parker (1993) found regarding a positive correlation between the perceived level of control over decision making and willingness to dissent. Where there was no perceived level of control over decision making, the participants in her study did not engage in dissent. The demonstrated behavior of the students in the hidden roles coincides with literature about Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB). Within the context of organizations, three types of citizen responsibilities exist: (1) organizational obedience; (2) organizational loyalty; and (3) organizational participation (Graham, 1991). For organizational members enacting organizational obedience there is a focus on maintaining , following job descriptions, and respecting rules and procedures. As members of the leadership team, the

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enactment of organizational obedience provides an explanation for why vice presidents, secretaries, committee members, and others might not feel the need to express dissent. Similarly, this same group of leaders could also be enacting organizational loyalty. In organizational loyalty, the role of the individual is to demonstrate allegiance to the organization. Allegiant actions include “defending the organization against threats; contributing to its good reputation; and cooperating with others to serve the interest of the whole” (Graham, 1991, p. 225). The people in the aforementioned positions may choose not to dissent because of their desire to perceive their organizations as conflict-free environments. Moreover, the self-reporting nature of this study also leaves space for participants to under-report their own role in dissent in an attempt to save face for their organizations. Presidents and treasurers. Unlike the aforementioned positions, presidents and treasurers may have a heightened responsibility for the success of the organization. The president typically serves as the face of the organization and the person who works to make sure everything operates as it should. The treasurer, although not the organizational president, aims to make sure that organization is financially solvent. Treasurers frequently have responsibilities for collecting dues, distributing money, and generally informing other organizational members about what the organization can afford to expend. This heightened responsibility also affects expectations around the ability to control organizational outcomes through their own actions. More than the other roles in the organization, organizational presidents and treasurers exhibit the responsibility of organizational participation. According to Graham (1991), organizational participation is “expressed through full and responsible organizational governance” (p.255). This responsibility is likely to result in dissent because of the willingness of those enacting this behavior to “deliver bad news or support an unpopular view to combat groupthink” (p.255). Ideally all organizational members are fulfilling all organizational responsibilities. Organizations cannot reach their potential by only having members who obey the rules without a care for the common good, or a whole membership of people who are willing to violate standards in order to protect the organization, or an organization made up of individuals who only focus on how the organization can help them accomplish their own needs. The lack of a negative correlation between self-efficacy and dissent among all components of the

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organizational leadership is disconcerting because it points to an uneven distribution of citizen responsibilities that organizations need to thrive. There was enough common cultural understanding among the students surveyed for them to identify with the listed positional roles, and to, in the case of the “other” group, recognize if their role was not present. This same common cultural understanding also informed how the students operate in their organizations. Sergiovanni (2007) believed that schools and other non- formal organizations like families, communities, and congregations follow an organizational epistemology which “reflect a set of assumptions, beliefs, and ways of knowing that are at the core of our bureaucratic, corporate society” (p.52). The student responses in this survey and subsequent interviews communicated their indoctrination to the concepts of organizations and leadership through a lens of a traditional for-profit business corporation, which has surrounded them throughout their lives. This kind of model sets up the students to assume that if they really want to influence what happens in an organization they have to either have the highest title (president) or be in charge of finances (treasurer). Dissent in Different Situations Since both the construct of self-efficacy and the construct of organizational dissent are contextually based, the assumption cannot be made that the presence of these constructs in one place means that they will exist in another. Within the qualitative interviews, however, participants moved easily through different types of scenarios when talking about dissent. I heard evidence of dissent occurring with family members, faculty members (Goodboy, 2011), workplace supervisors and colleagues, in addition to that which occurred in the student organization. For some students, participating in organizational dissent was an easy transition because they had experience in partaking in dissent in other areas of their lives. Joining the student organization did not change the way they participated in dissent, it just became one more space where dissent was occurring. This transition to dissent in another location can be attributed to the development of self-efficacy in the area of dissent. Once students had successful experience expressing dissent and generating a positive outcome, they were more willing to attempt it in different spaces. This was true in an opposite way for students; their negative previous experiences with dissent in the workplace or with family members created a bit of a fear around engaging in dissent with others. Since they had not experienced the four ways of self-efficacy

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development: mastery, psychological affect, verbal persuasion, or vicarious experience (Bandura, 1997), in the area of dissent, they were more reluctant to communicate their dissent. In those cases where students were likely to retreat from dissent, earlier experiences in their lives effectively convinced them that once someone’s mind is made up, there is no changing it. This, in a sense, caused the students to overestimate the adamancy of the opinions of others and prematurely avoid dissent. If people involved in the development of children, be it family members, teachers, coaches or others, fail to allow for dissent, they put at risk the development of this area. For college students in particular, the people who future generations will look to for leadership, a reduced ability to participate in dissent leaves humanity vulnerable. There is value in educating students not for just the world which currently exists, but also to enable them to lead a society which is greater than the one that previously existed (Dewey, 2011). Encouraging dissent and periodically responding to it favorably is good for students; it is good for us all. College Student Dissent across Campuses Regardless of the lack of attention paid to teaching students the value of participating in dissent, throughout the history of higher education, students have been participating in dissent (Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1971; Morgan & Wicas, 1972; Pietrofesa & Van Hoose, 1970). A majority of the literature written regarding college students participating in dissent is about the 1960’s and 1970’s when large numbers of college students across different campuses participated in various social movements. More recent college student activism continues to inform scholars on how, why, and when students express dissent in organizations. In late 2014, when highly publicize racial incidents occurred in cities all over the United States, college students began enacting more active and radical dissent on their campuses (Leonard, 2014). In late fall 2015 just prior to the beginning of the qualitative portion of this study, a graduate student at the University of Missouri, Jonathan Butler, began a hunger strike which resulted in the resignation of the University of Missouri President (Schuppe, 2015). While the research questions for this study do not align with the incident at the University of Missouri, given the time of the incident and the proximity of the topic to the research questions, I did briefly engage all four students about the topic. Two students were basically unaware of the situation at Missouri, another student had some loose information about the situation, and the final student, the student of color, had done a little research on what occurred. In the brief conversations I had with the students, they were surprised and impressed that

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students at another school were able to force the resignation of a university president. A few of them pointed out that perhaps it was the involvement of the football team that pushed the resignation into reality, which made the initial act of the hunger strike still important, but less significant than it otherwise would have been. They found some solidarity with the students at Missouri, but they did not feel a personal connection to the issues being protested (Zukin, 2006). They also did not believe that students at their school would engage in similar acts but, they did recognize that some of the concerns communicated by students at the University of Missouri were also present at their institution. The students at the host institution hold many privileged identities including race (White), socio-economic status (wealthy), and college generational status (not first-generation). During the height of student activism on college campuses in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the students who were White, wealthy, and not first-generation college students would have been most likely to participate in campus protests (Pietrofesa & Van Hoose,1970). After the 1970’s, student dissent on college campuses by White and wealthy students began to subside. That population of students, along with others became more focused on the financial benefit of attending college than on the academic lessons they were supposed to be learning (Altbach, 1997). This trend appears to continue at the host institution where students of color and students from other underrepresented backgrounds participate in dissent about racial tolerance with very little support from their majority White and wealthy student counterparts. White and wealthy students on the host campus do protest, but only when whatever they are protesting personally affects them. In 2008, a windstorm knocked out electrical power on campus as well as in the surrounding area. When campus administrators made the decision to resume classes after electrical power was restored to campus, but before power was restored to the surrounding area, students protested in front of the university president’s house. The protest was peaceful and ultimately did not impact the decision to resume classes. The dissent occurring on college campuses in reaction to the perceived racial injustice happening in the United States is also occurring at the host institution, but almost exclusively only involves Black students or students from other underrepresented groups. As Sunstein (2003) explained, people are more likely to conform to the majority sentiment when the topic at issue does not threaten their identity. Racial injustice within the United States, on college campuses or otherwise, does not currently resonate with White students at the host institution

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enough for them to feel the need to act. Until racial injustice and discriminatory behaviors threaten the identity of majority students in the same way that it threatens the identity of minority students, majority students are more likely to continue to conform to the status quo, even if they disagree. It is possible that the students I interviewed did not feel a connection to the students who were dissenting at the University of Missouri because the interviewees were so focused on their own lives that they did not really know what was occurring or why it was occurring. Although this story was covered in new media outlets, and social media outlets, it was possible to completely miss this event. Missing such a significant occurrence of dissent on a college campus suggests that despite the prevalence of social media in this society, activism that is limited to these means alone have a more difficult chance of producing long-term change (Christiansen, 2011). The students at the University of Missouri not only spoke about what was happening on their campus via social media, they also met with civic leaders, held campus demonstrations, and developed coalitions with others in their community. While it is accurate to assume that the events reported by Leonard (2014) impacted the activism at the University of Missouri, only time will tell if the dissent exercised by Jonathan Butler and others will produce a vicarious experience that will encourage other students to participate in similar acts of dissent on their own campuses. The conversations that I had with the students in my study do not compel me to believe that such massive change is on the horizon. Implications for College Educators The negative correlation that exists between self-efficacy and dissent provides evidence of the students’ preference to control various aspects of their organizational experiences, while retaining a sense of belonging with the majority (Sunstein, 2003). The interviews revealed students’ desire to be able to use their energy to resolve their own problems instead of arguing with naysayers about the validity of their desire to accomplish their goals. When the students did engage in dissent they did so knowing that they were risking the loss of comfort in the majority as well as relationships with friends, supervisors, mentors, and faculty members. This loss of comfort and security aligns with the risk others in different types of organizations (work, church, community) experience when choosing to participate in dissent (Jetten & Hornsey, 2011; Shiffrin, 1999; Stitzlein, 2014; Sunstein, 2003).

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Interactions with faculty and staff members. As students matriculate from high school to college, their interactions with university personnel are also key to their development (Baxter Magolda, 2001). It is important to note that more than just being present for students, professional staff and faculty members are constantly teaching students, either formally or informally about what it means to be an adult and what it means to be a leader. I understand and accept that some people do not view themselves as leaders, but the reality is that when a staff or faculty member steps foot on a college campus, they step into a leadership position. Students look to them for leadership, guidance, and support, in residence halls, classrooms, athletic fields, and student organizations. While students do not enter college as blank slates with no past, they are fairly open and will be molded by the experience, even if they resist. College is, for everyone, not just for those who want it, a transformative experience (Baxter Magolda, 2001). With that understanding, faculty and staff play a role, not the only role, but a critical role in the development of students. The most heartwarming components of my interviews where when students spoke highly of faculty members, organizational advisors, and others who helped them negotiate their collegiate experience both inside and outside of the classroom. Simultaneously, the most disturbing and disappointing periods of the interviews were when the students discussed negative experiences with faculty and staff. I am not under the belief that students should never have a negative experience, but in this study the experiences reported were not just negative, they were damaging to the students’ psyche and overall college experience. I am not sure if those faculty and staff members who created those experiences ever fully realized the kind of damage that they did to the students and I think it is because they failed to see the weight of their role as educators. Another instance of disappointment in my study is related to the lack of response Alan received when he tried to dissent. Alan identified an issue that was concerning to him, took the time to write a letter addressing his concern, and was never given the respect of a response. There are moments when today’s college students get accused of being self-centered and disengaged, but given Alan’s experience, one has to wonder if repeatedly voicing dissent and getting no response from authority figures has atrophied the willingness students and others have to dissent.

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Writing to Congress and others. Scholar Alan Sica (2015) recounted his 2008 experience of writing to every member of Congress regarding his desire to see the extraction of U.S. Military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike Alan the student, Alan Sica received correspondence back from 10 members of Congress; six senators and four representatives. Considering he sent 540 letters, this is still a pretty terrible rate of return. Alan, the student, continues to believe that writing a letter to the right people in power can create positive change. He likely believes this because “students who took civics classes in high school many years ago were told they could—in theory—register their opinions, desires, and needs with members of Congress, either by visiting them in their branch or Washington offices, or by writing them a letter” (Sica, 2015, p.242). I cannot say for sure if Alan developed his belief in letter writing through school or from other adults in his life, but it was clear from his interview that he views letter writing as a way to communicate dissent to those in power. The idea of writing to Congress in order to get change made has not been taken seriously by the citizenry since the beginning of Congress (Sica, 2015). “The smiling cynicism built into the phrase reflects the lack of influence, interest, and hope that has long engulfed most U.S. citizens when they contemplate everyday business in Washington. Their political “action” therefore becomes limited to paying taxes due and occasionally voting in national elections” (Sica, 2015, p.242). I’m not certain about how many more letters Alan will write to Congress or university administrators and not get a response before he decides that letter writing is not worth his effort. Should Alan lose his desire to communicate dissent via letter writing, perhaps he will move from letter writing to more dramatic acts of dissent in order to get the results he desires, or maybe, like so many others, he will stop participating in articulated dissent altogether. The importance of practice. Students practice their dissenting skills with friends and family members, as well as university personnel, employers, colleagues, and classmates. The practice students receive inside and outside of the collegiate experience, while they do not have children, partners, or full-time jobs, prepare them to participate in the larger world that awaits them just beyond graduation. Administrators, teachers, and parents do students no favors by either giving into their every whim, or denying their persistent requests. It is important for students to learn how to dissent, so that when they encounter an obstacle that seems insurmountable, instead of determining that they

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cannot do anything about it and walking away, they’ll measure the risk and perhaps communicate their dissent in order to make whatever they’ve encountered better. In order for the participation of dissent to exist in smaller “practice” scenarios or larger “life-making” events, self-efficacy and expectations of agency have to be present. When students do not expect to have agency over their lives, nor the ability to influence their outcomes, they see no reason to dissent. Educators must help students become comfortable with viewing themselves as able to participate in actions that can influence their outcomes. Beyond viewing themselves as able to impact their outcomes, students also must see themselves as capable of having thoughts, values, and ideologies that are independent from others (Kegan, 1994; Baxter Magolda, 2001). Implications for Organizational Leaders Individuals who choose not to dissent may have previously had a bad experience with dissent, which reduced their self-efficacy thus making them reluctant to dissent in the current environment (Bandura, 1997). In those instances, leaders may need to create specific opportunities to request and receive feedback. Leaders should only offer those opportunities when they are open to making changes. If organizational leaders are just offering feedback or dissenting opportunities without any intention of actualizing any changes, they should save their effort. Providing an opportunity for people to participate in dissent and then punishing those who take the opportunity, could create a perception that dissent is not really welcomed in the organization. Similarly, if organizational leaders receive feedback through formal or informal means and do nothing with the feedback, people will perceive providing feedback as a waste of their energy and will neglect to do it the future. This is not to imply that organizational leaders have to give into every whim of their members, but rather they should select a few appropriate items that they can change. As members learn about the culture of organizational leaders and their openness to dissent, they will make determinations about whether they should continue to be in the organization. Self-efficacious people want to be able to feel the impact of their presence in the organization. They want to have tasks and responsibilities that get done because they are present. This does not mean that self-efficacious members are not interested in the success of other individuals or the overall organization, but that they have to understand their role in making the success of the organization possible (Bandura, 1997, 2011). Whether it’s through the accomplishment of specific organizational tasks or related to the enactment of change produced

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through dissent, it is important for individuals to see why their presence in the organization matters. When there is a lack of evidence that organizational members’ efforts matter, they begin to make decisions about whether they should remain with the organization. The creator of the Organizational Dissent Scale (ODS) found that communication of articulated dissent was negatively correlated with intent to leave the organization: the more organizational members participated in articulated dissent, the more likely they were to be retained in the organization (Kassing, 2012). It is most desirable for organizations to encourage the expression of organization dissent from all members of the organization, otherwise they could lose their most efficacious people and be left with people who have the willingness to communicate their organizational dissent, but lack the self-efficacy to enact behaviors that will make a difference in the organization. The decision to depart from the organization is evidence of self-efficacy. Since people with high self-efficacy believe that their actions can help them achieve their desired outcomes, they shift their desired outcomes, rather than communicate their dissent. For example, instead of the desired outcome being “having an enjoyable experience in XXX organization, the outcome shifts to “find an organization in which I can have an enjoyable experience and leave XXX organization as soon as possible.” A failure to recognize the presence of the second statement can lead organizations to high turnover and an unstable membership. If organizational leaders find themselves saying “we can get good people here, but we can’t seem to keep them,” perhaps they want to have an honest conversation with people when they depart. Organizational leaders will want to also take note when their generally highly self- efficacious members start engaging in dissent. To organizational leaders, it is likely to look and feel like everyone is complaining. To be fair, there are likely some individuals in the organization who are participating in bad dissent (Craig, 2014; Stitzlein, 2014). They do not really have any altruistic desire to see the organization or the organizational leaders perform better, rather they just seek to engage in complaint and critique that is not aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of the organization (Craig, 2014). There are also, however, a group of people who move about the organization getting their work done and only communicate dissent every now and then. When these individuals appear, organizational leaders should pay special attention to their dissent. Chances are there has been a shift in the way in which the individuals dissenting

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can complete their work, and that the shift has reduced their self-efficacy and thus increased their dissent. This may sound like being resistant to change but, before jumping to that conclusion, organizational leaders should take the time to talk with the individuals directly impacted by the shift in order to understand why members feel less efficacious about completing their tasks. If this shift can be adjusted in order to help organizational members feel increased self-efficacy while still meeting the needs of the overall organization, leaders should make the move. Limitations and Future Research Opportunities There are certainly limitations to this research study, the first being the population that was studied. The participants, both the in quantitative survey portion and the qualitative interview portion of the study, were all students at the same institution. While I suspect similar results with different populations of students, since this institution is located in a particular place and has an institutional culture, the results of this study may not be as transferable as I anticipate. Another limitation to the study is the way that the constructs of self-efficacy and dissent were both characterized through a Western/United States of America perspective. Although the Generalized Self-Efficacy scale was designed for use inside and outside of the United States, the Organizational Dissent Scale was developed and previously utilized on studies conducted in the U.S. On a whole, this study is very U.S. centric. In addition, the qualitative data have limitations regarding the number of individuals with whom I conducted interviews. I selected individuals whose answers covered the spectrum of responses, but this fact does not negate that the information shared from the individuals is representative of their own experiences and cannot be broadly taken as representative of others who completed the survey. The quantitative data have limitations because all usable data was included in the final results, not just the answers to surveys that were 100% complete. This decision created shifts in the N of useful data, throughout the survey. Another limitation of the quantitative data was the use of the “other” category when looking at the correlation between self-efficacy and dissent among different organizational positions. The category of “other” had a significant correlation with antagonistic dissent, but without more information about what “other” meant to the takers of the survey, questions about that phenomenon remain unanswered. An additional limitation of this study is that the research design is not experimental, but rather relies on the use of self-report to gather data. Sometimes, when individuals are responsible for reporting their own behaviors,

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they overestimate what they perceive to be positive qualities, and underestimate what they perceive to be negative qualities, this is could have occurred in this study as well. Future research opportunities. In looking at the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent among college student organizational leaders there are many additional research studies that can be conducted. Since the students studied in this project were organizational members, giving a similar survey to students who are not classified as organizational members would tell me if the negative correlation between the constructs exists among all students. Likewise, having student leaders and students who are not leaders at a different school take the survey would provide information about whether the correlation exists only at the host institution. Lastly, giving this survey to student leaders and students who are not leaders at schools outside of the United States could inform me about whether this phenomenon only exists in the U.S. In terms of data I already have, but was not used or needed for this study, reviewing demographic differences which exist among the current sample is a good place to start. Early results using Kruskal-Wallis analysis indicate that there might be a difference in the correlation based upon race and sex. Does the correlation between self-efficacy and dissent hold true for women and men, or students of color and white students in the same way? I also think that, similar to the Baxter Magolda’s (2001) longitudinal study on self-authorship, the topics of self- efficacy and dissent lend themselves to a qualitative and quantitative longitudinal study. Do students’ answers remain the same when they have salaried positions, a mortgage to pay, and children to nurture? What about when they reach their 40s? Using self-efficacy and dissent instruments that were designed for non-student populations means that this information might be applicable to members of all types of organizations. While the GSE and ODS were good validated instruments to use for this study, it is worthwhile to develop an instrument designed specifically to measure how one develops self- efficacy in dissenting behaviors or, in other words, the belief that their dissent will make a difference. Until that new instrument is developed, taking this combined instrument to churches, schools, and places of employment will provide much needed evidence about the transferability of the results.

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Conclusion Both self-efficacy and dissent are constructs that have been researched over the last several decades. The frequency, in which the two constructs have been considered together, is almost completely absent. This study acknowledges the value of each individual construct, while pursuing new knowledge about a connection between the two. Through the use of both previously vetted instruments as well as statistical software, a negative correlation between self- efficacy and the expression of organizational dissent was identified among students who participate in student organizations. In addition, the qualitative portion of the study provided first-hand accounts about the participants’ level of self-efficacy, their expression of dissent, and how they enacted them throughout the various components of their lives. Previous and current experiences with dissent impact the expression of organizational dissent in the future. There are a number of reasons that organizational members may choose to not express articulated dissent, including fear of consequences, disregard for the organization, and contentment with the current situation. The results of this study have implications for college students, as well as the faculty and staff members who work with them. All staff and faculty members on a college campus, regardless of their proximity to traditional classroom activities, should view themselves as integral to the educational experiences of students. More specifically, college educators have the potential to play a critical role in students’ development of self-efficacy as well as their opportunities to practice dissent. Today’s college students are likely to be tomorrow’s leaders in education, government, and business. The self-efficacy of college students and their expression of dissent specifically in organizations and broadly in other areas of their lives is a topic that has the potential to impact humanity. As the most educated members of our country, their voices or the lack thereof will play a critical role in addressing and resolving both organizational and societal shortcomings.

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APPENDIX

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APPENDIX A: INFORMED CONSENT FOR SURVEY My name is Vicka Bell-Robinson and I am a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership program at Miami University. I am working with my advisor, Dr. Kathleen Knight-Abowitz to conduct a research study on the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent. This study is specifically designed to look at how these constructs are connected within college student organizational members. In order to be eligible to participate in this study, students must be a current member of at least one student organization at Miami University; according to my records, you fit this category. WHAT IS INVOLVED IN THE STUDY

This project is designed to explore the relationship that a student organizational participant's self- efficacy (one's belief that his or her actions can influence a desired outcome) has with that same student organizational participant's level of dissent (one's willingness to offer an opinion that is contrary to the majority sentiment).

If you decide to take part in the project, you will be asked to complete a one-time survey about your participation in your primary student organization. You will also be asked to reflect on your feelings and experiences related to your ability to accomplish desired outcomes through your own actions.

This study also contains a voluntary interview portion. Only participants who have completed the survey are eligible for participation in the interview sessions. There will be three follow-up interviews held in the fall of 2015. Each interview is anticipated to last no longer than one hour.

RISKS

I believe the risks to participating in this survey are no greater than what is typically encountered in everyday life.

BENEFITS TO TAKING PART IN THE STUDY

Your involvement in this study will help us learn if there is a relationship between self-efficacy and dissent. Knowledge of a connection between these two constructs can have an impact on how educators seek to enhance student self-efficacy related to dissent.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Data collected for this study will be kept in a password protected file, within a password connected computer. Additionally, data from this study will not be presented in a way where the student is easily identifiable. Furthermore, results will not be used anyone to promote or deny privileges.

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INCENTIVE

All participants who leave their information will be entered into a one-time drawing for 150.00 in gift cards. Participants who volunteer, are selected, and complete all three follow-up interview sessions of the research project will be given $50.00 in gift certificates for their time.

YOUR RIGHTS AS A RESEARCH PARTICIPANT

Participation in this study is voluntary. You have the right not to participate at all or to leave the study at any time. Deciding not to participate or choosing to leave the study will not result in any penalty or loss of benefits to which you are entitled, and it will not harm your relationship with Miami University, the Office of Student Activities, or any of the individuals or entities associated there within. Should you choose to leave the study, you can do so by sending an e- mail to me, Vicka Bell-Robinson, at [email protected].

CONTACTS FOR QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS

You can contact me at 513-529-4009 or email at [email protected] or contact my faculty advisor, Kathleen Knight-Abowitz, at [email protected] if you have any questions, problems, or concerns about the study. For questions or concerns about the rights of research subjects or the voluntariness of this consent procedure, please contact the Research and Compliance Office at Miami: 513-529-3600 or [email protected].

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APPENDIX B: STUDENT ORGANIZATION PARTICIPATION SURVEY Number of semesters at the university Including the current semester What best describes your primary student organization.

 Academic  Leadership  Multicultural  Service  Social  Sport/Intramural

For the purposes of this study, please use the same organization listed above. Please select the role that most closely aligns with your organizational role in the organization listed above.

 President  Vice President  Secretary  Treasurer  Committee Member  General Member  Other

I complain about things in my organization with other organizational members.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I refuse to discuss organizational concerns at home.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

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I criticize the inefficiency in this organization in front of everyone.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I do not question organizational officers.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I am hesitant to question organizational rules.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I join in when other organizational members complain about organizational changes.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I make it a habit not to complain about the organization in front of my family.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I share my criticism of the organization openly.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree

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 Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I rarely voice my frustrations about organizational issues in front of my significant other and non-organizational friends.

 Strongly agree  Agree  Agree some and disagree some  Disagree  Strongly disagree

I make certain everyone knows that I am unhappy with organizational policies.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I don't tell an organizational officer when I disagree with organizational decisions.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I bring my criticism about organizational changes that aren't working to an organizational officer.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I do not express my disagreement to organizational officers.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree

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 Strongly agree

I let other organizational members know about how I feel about the way things are done in the organization.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I speak with an organizational officer when I question organizational decisions.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I talk about my organizational concerns to people outside of the organization.

 Strongly Disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I do not criticize my organization in front of other members.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I make suggestions to officers about correcting the inefficiency in my organization.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

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I discuss my concerns about organizational decisions with family and friends outside of the organization.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I hardly ever complain to other organizational members about organizational problems.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I tell organizational officers when I believe organizational members are being treated unfairly.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I speak freely with organizational members about troubling organizational issues.

 Strongly agree  Agree  Agree some and disagree some  Disagree  Strongly disagree

I talk with friends and family about organizational issues that I am uncomfortable discussing at work.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

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I am hesitant to raise questions or contradictory opinions in my organization.

 Strongly disagree  Disagree  Agree some and disagree some  Agree  Strongly agree

I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough.

 Not true at all  Hardly true  Moderately true  Exactly true

If someone opposes me, I find the means and ways to get what I want.

 Not true at all  Hardly true  Moderately true  Exactly true

It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals.

 Not true at all  Hardly true  Moderately true  Exactly true

I am confident that I could deal efficiently with unexpected events.

 Not true at all  Hardly true  Moderately true  Exactly true

Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to handle unforeseen events.

 Exactly true  Moderately true  Hardly true  Not true at all

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I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort.

 Exactly true  Moderately true  Hardly true  Not true at all

I can remain calm when facing difficulties because I can rely on my coping abilities.

 Not true at all  Hardly true  Moderately true  Exactly true

When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find several solutions.

 Not true at all  Hardly true  Moderately true  Exactly true

If I am in trouble, I can usually think of a solution.

 Exactly true  Moderately true  Hardly true  Not true at all

I can usually handle whatever comes my way.

 Not true at all  Hardly true  Moderately true  Exactly true

Sex Race or Ethnicity Are you currently considered an out-of-state or out-of-country student? Please enter my name into the drawing for the participation prize. Your University ID. Please enter my name into the drawing for the participation prize.

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Your University ID. I am willing to be contacted for in order to be interviewed about my responses. Participants selected for this portion of the study will receive a $50.00 gift card to a local merchant. Please put your contact information in the box below. Name, Unique ID, and Preferred E-mail Address

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APPENDIX C: INFORMED CONSENT FOR INTERVIEW Student Organization Participation– Interview Process

My name is Vicka Bell-Robinson and I am a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership program at Miami University. I am working with my advisor, Dr. Kathleen Knight-Abowitz to conduct a research study on the relationship between self-efficacy and dissent. This study is specifically designed to look at how these constructs are connected within college student organizational members. In order to be eligible to participate in this study, students must be a current member of at least one student organization at Miami University; according to my records, you fit this category. WHAT IS INVOLVED IN THE STUDY

This project is designed to explore the relationship that a student organizational participant's self- efficacy (one's belief that his or her actions can influence a desired outcome) has with that same student organizational participant's level of dissent (one's willingness to offer an opinion that is contrary to the majority sentiment).

If you decide to take part in the project, you will be asked to participate in three interviews that will last no longer than an hour each. The first interview will focus on your self-efficacy, the second on your experiences with dissent, and the third on how you participate in dissent inside and outside of your primary student organization. All three interviews will be audio recorded for accuracy. In addition to your time, you grant permission for direct quotes from your interviews to be used in the final report and other publications.

RISKS

I believe the risks involved in participating in these interviews are no greater than what is typically encountered in everyday life.

BENEFITS TO TAKING PART IN THE STUDY

Your involvement in this study will help us learn if there is a relationship between self-efficacy and dissent. Knowledge of a connection between these two constructs can have an impact on how educators seek to enhance student self-efficacy related to dissent.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Data collected for this study will be kept in a password protected file, within a password connected computer. Additionally, data from this study will not be presented in a way where you are easily identifiable. Furthermore, results will not be used anyone to promote or deny privileges.

INCENTIVE

When you complete all three interview sessions of the research project you will be given $50.00 in gift certificates for your time.

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YOUR RIGHTS AS A RESEARCH PARTICIPANT

Participation in this study is voluntary. You have the right not to participate at all or to leave the study at any time. Deciding not to participate or choosing to leave the study will not result in any penalty or loss of benefits to which you are entitled, and it will not harm your relationship with Miami University, the Office of Student Activities, or any of the individuals or entities associated there within. Should you choose to leave the study, you can do so by sending an e- mail to me, Vicka Bell-Robinson, at [email protected].

CONTACTS FOR QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS

You can contact me at 513-529-4009 or email at [email protected] or contact my faculty advisor, Kathleen Knight-Abowitz, at [email protected] if you have any questions, problems, or concerns about the study. For questions or concerns about the rights of research subjects or the voluntariness of this consent procedure, please contact the Research and Compliance Office at Miami: 513-529-3600 or [email protected].

I agree to participate in the above student and give permission for direct quotes from my interviews to be used in future publications.

Printed Name

Signature Date

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APPENDIX D: STANDARD INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Self-Efficacy Interview Questions

Before we begin, let’s decide on a pseudonym.

1. Please describe your primary student organization. How long have you been a participant? What position, if any, do you hold in the organization? 2. When a problem arises in your organization, how do you go about solving it? 3. Please discuss other organizations in which you’ve participated, but are no longer a member? Why did you decide to leave the organization? 4. Does your current organization serve as the replacement for your previous organization? Why or why not, and in what way? 5. How do tasks get accomplished in your organization? What role do you play? 6. What makes participation in your current organization more desirable than your previous organization? 7. Provide an example of when you had to attempt something you’ve never done before and what steps you took. 8. Describe a time when someone told you that you could not accomplish something because it was not possible. What was your response or reaction? 9. How do you rate (1-5) your belief in your ability to accomplish an unfamiliar task? Provide an example to explain your rating. 10. What gives you the belief that you can accomplish a task or goal?

Dissent Questions 1. Please discuss a time when you expressed disagreement with something that occurred within your primary organization. Who did you communicate with and why? 2. What are some factors you consider when deciding if you should voice dissent about a situation or occurrence? 3. Please discuss a time when you disagreed with the majority sentiment. What was your role? Did you communicate your disagreement? How did you communicate your disagreement? 4. Broadly, please talk about a time when you opposed someone’s idea and what you did to articulate your opposition. 5. What do you think causes you to speak up when you disagree with something that is going on? 6. When you encounter a situation in which you disagree with the plan of action, what factors do you consider when determining whether you should address the situation yourself or tell someone else about it? 7. When you have a disagreement are you mostly like to tell someone in a higher level position, tell someone in your same position, or tell someone completely unconnected to the situation? Why

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8. Please describe a time when you articulated disagreement against a member of the opposite sex? Is that similar or different than when you disagree with someone of the same sex? 9. Please discuss a time when you articulated disagreement with someone who holds more power than you? What was that experience like for you? 10. Please discuss a time when you articulated disagreement with someone who was older than you? Is that similar or different than when you disagree with someone who is your age or younger? 11. Please describe a time when you disagreed with a sentiment and your disagreement produced a positive result. 12. Please describe a time when you disagreed with a sentiment and your disagreement produced a negative result. 13. One a scale from 1-5, with 5 being high. How important do you think it is for people to dissent when they see or hear something they disagree with? Why? Final Interview Questions 1. Will you describe a time when you dissented about something inside your organization to someone outside of your organization? Why did you speak to this person? What was the result of the conversation? 2. What role does the presence of people who agree with your opinion play in your decision to dissent to someone in authority or stand against the majority? 3. I am curious about if your level of success in articulating dissent in one area of your life impacts your willingness to articulate dissent in another? 4. Do you find that you are more vocal about things that you don't agree with in locations/organizations where you've spent a lot of time? 5. There are a lot of problems in this country, who do you think is responsible for solving those problems? 6. Why might someone choose not to get involved in working towards a better society? 7. Are you registered to vote? How regularly do you participate in elections? Does your vote matter? 8. How has college shaped your overall belief in your ability to achieve your desired outcomes? 9. How has college shaped your overall willingness to speak up against those in power or stand in opposition to the majority opinion? 10. From the survey results, there is a negative correlation between self-efficacy and the expression of organizational dissent. More specifically, there is no correlation between self-efficacy and the expression of antagonistic dissent, no correlation between self- efficacy and the expression of displaced dissent, but a negative correlation between self- efficacy and expression of articulated dissent. Why do you think this might be the case? 11. How do you this going through the process of talking about self-efficacy and dissent has impacted you?

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