Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Education

Advisor

Jennifer L. Courduff

Abstract

Many Hawaiʻi high schools have adopted the career academy model to meet the innovative goals set by the state’s department and board of education. Few guidelines exist for implementing this model in a new and unique setting. In the literature, the most predominant component across successful career academies was high-quality business collaborations. However, no research was found that examined how business collaborations are implemented in Hawaiʻi schools, nor studies that reinvent the business collaboration component to develop variations for a specific location. The purpose of this qualitative Delphi study was to develop possible variations of the business collaboration component found in successful career academies that meet the needs of Hawai‘i’s career academies. This study used Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory and the concerns-based adoption model as the conceptual framework. The focus of the research questions was developing possible variations of the business collaboration component by identifying the key features of the component, then forming ideal, acceptable, and unacceptable variations of each key feature. Following the qualitative Delphi process, Hawai‘i career academy stakeholders developed 20 innovation configuration maps containing 242 behavioral variations aligned by 83 overarching concepts via an online questionnaire platform. Data analysis occurred using thematic coding and Thurstone scaling. Findings from this study could cause social change because the variations of the business collaboration component may result in increased adoption rates and sustainability of the business collaboration innovation in Hawaiʻi career academies.

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