The determination of competencies needed by community services directors as perceived by the community services director and his immediate supervisor in Texas community colleges

Abstract

This research was designed to determine the competencies of community services directors in the Texas public junior colleges. The subjects selected for the study consisted of fifty-one community services directors and forty-three supervisors of community services directors. The two populations responding represented 94 percent of the community services directors and 79.9 percent of the supervisors of community services directors in the Texas public junior colleges. The ninety competency questions used to evaluate perceptions were obtained from a study directed by Dr. Thomas K. Connellan, Bureau of Industrial Relations at the University of Michigan. The analysis of variance statistical treatment indicated a significant difference in the perceptions of the community services directors and their immediate supervisors at the .05 level of confidence. A contingency table analysis was computed to classify the responses for each of the ninety questions into two categories, community services directors and supervisors of community services directors. The analysis identified significant differences in the pattern of responses between the two populations responding. In order to rank the competency questions, the mean for each was determined for each of the populations. These two means were totaled for each question and divided by two to obtain an average mean. The average mean served to rank the competencies for the study. It can be concluded from the identified competencies that the community services directors considered the outside functions or the delivery system process to the community as being the most important. The supervisor of the community services director considered the overall function of the institution as being most important. This result could be expected because each group evaluated the competency with the attitude and association related to his own responsibility.