Master's students investigate communication processes between employees and management at SCHKOLA during the pandemic in a research internship.
Direct, linear and, above all, personal. Talking to each other is essential. But is the pandemic and the associated transfer of important communication processes to the digital space also changing their quality?
A research group consisting of students from the Master's degree program in Management of Social Change has addressed precisely this question and, in cooperation with SCHKOLA gGmbH, conducted a survey on the perceived development of communication quality between employees and management of the independent regional education and school provider.
The research process and the sometimes surprising preliminary results were recently presented virtually.
"In our Master's program, a research internship takes place in the third semester, in which students apply their knowledge of empirical social research to change in the region and take a closer look at a subject of their choice. Our research group has set itself the task of investigating the effects of the pandemic situation on SCHKOLA," reports Nicole Gierke.
The Master's student emphasizes that the necessary shift of learning operations to the digital world has already meant an enormous change in the social space of schools. However, her group focused in particular on communication processes between the learning facilitators (at SCHKOLA, this refers to teachers, pedagogical staff and other employees) and the management level. "Because this exchange also had to be moved to the virtual space, which resulted in new challenges and process pattern changes for everyone involved."
So how has communication between the management and the learning guides at SCHKOLA changed in light of the pandemic situation in 2020?
The learning guides were asked about the quality of communication in three periods using a digitalized, standardized, empirically tested questionnaire that was agreed with the SCHKOLA management:
The differences in communication quality between the two lockdown periods were compared. A distinction was also made between two age groups of respondents (younger and older)
The students were surprised by the results. "The evaluation showed that there were no significant changes in the generally high quality of communication when comparing the two lockdown periods. There were also no significant differences between the age groups. In both age groups, the quality of communication was perceived and assessed as high to very high," says student Maria J. Schubert.
There was also no evidence of a huge drop in the quality of communication compared to the time before the pandemic broke out. "You can only see slight fluctuations here," says the research group member.
How does the research group explain the results? "SCHKOLA gGmbH had already focused on digital learning methods before the outbreak of the pandemic, including the acquisition of appropriate infrastructure and the involvement of learning guides in the process," says Nicole Gierke, discussing possible causes. "Favorable hierarchical constellations and high exchange frequencies are also conceivable factors. Further research would need to be carried out at this point."
The research team would like to thank SCHKOLA for its openness and transparent, supportive collaboration. They also see SCHKOLA and its support associations as good contacts for further cooperation in the form of final theses or internships.
