Our research has found little empirical work examining the perspective of the school, as an organization, or its educational administrators on this important issue. Despite the prominent role that mission statements often play in education, educational researchers have generally ignored mission statements as a source of empirical research data.
Given the lack of tools, our team developed a coding rubric for school mission statements using the technique of emergent coding. Samples of school mission statements were randomly selected and reviewed independently by two research teams who then extracted the dominant themes that emerged from the sample of statements.
The research teams then met and established consensus on the major themes that emerged. From these themes, our mission statement coding rubric was developed. To test the rubric and coding scheme, researchers then used the rubric to independently code a new sample of school mission statements. The final step was to provide the new rubric to a new set of independent raters to independently rate a new sample of mission statements. Using our mission statement coding rubric, these raters were found to reach acceptably high levels of interrater agreement (i.e., kappa > .70).
Thus, using our mission statement coding rubric, each school mission statement can be evaluated across 11 distinct possible categories/themes.
EXAMPLE A
Example of broadly conceived school mission statement
Curtis Senior High School, WA
Each person affiliated with our school is a valued, needed member of the
Curtis Viking community. Every Viking is responsible for promoting
positive learning opportunities in a caring, equitable manner. This
environment will enable all to develop fully their academic1,
emotional2, social3, and physical4
potential and, thus be empowered to assume responsible
citizenship5 in our local6, national,
and global7 communities. To this end, we value
achievement, respect2 and concern for others2,
affiliation and pride, diversity, equity and opportunity, communication,
safety8 and order, collaboration, responsibility and
accountability, and trust2 as cornerstones of our
learning community.
CODING:
1cognitive development, 2emotional development, 3social development, 4physical development, 5civic development, 6local community, 7global community, 8safe environment
EXAMPLE B
Example of overly-broad mission statements with no codable themes
Wicksburg School, Alabama “Striving for excellence”
Merino Junior-Senior High School, Alabama “Building tomorrow’s leaders today”
All material © Steve Stemler, Ph.D.