Conditions of interpersonal trust reported by two year college student affairs professionals of their performance evaluators

Abstract

The goal of this investigation is to provide answers to the following three questions:

1. For the two year college student affairs professional, what are the interpersonal relationship conditions leading to trust of their performance evaluators?

2. How are certain organizational power/status variables, such as professional status differences or demographic characteristics (e.g., gender or ethnicity), related to those trust conditions.

3. Do conditions leading to interpersonal trust differ based on differences in any of these power/status variables?

A questionnaire, which includes the Conditions of Trust Inventory (Butler, 1992) and rating measurements for the power/status variables, was administered on site. The sample was derived from a cross section of student affairs professionals employed at every community college in a mid- Atlantic state. A total of 204 subjects responded.

All 10 trust condition subscales from the survey instrument were highly intercorrelated. A factor analysis yielded a single factor solution which failed to effectively differentiate, in any meaningful way, differences in either the original 10 variables or to produce any useful factor structure.

One-way and two-way ANOVAS were used to compare subjects in rating their evaluators on measures of overall trust on the basis of the power/status categorical variables. The only significant power/status variable (p <.05) was the "positional status level difference." Pearson correlations were used to examine relationships between power/status continuous variables (time duration) and "overall trust." No significant correlations resulted.

Last, a regression analysis examined any possible effects the "positional status level difference" variable had on subject ratings of their evaluators on measures of overall trust. In this case, "positional status level difference" was not found to be significant.

The findings of this study suggest the following implications for further investigation:

1. A need to examine the relationship of certain organizational culture artifacts, unique to the two year college environment, to measures of trust between student affairs practitioners and their evaluators.

2. A need to develop an effective assessment instrument which is built upon behavioral rather than attitudinal assessments.

3. A need to investigate the phenomenon of interpersonal trust development through a substantive qualitative analysis.

4, The need to examine the relationship of several contextual variables in this study to subordinate motivation and performance.

5. The need to examine certain institutional characteristics (enrollment size, funding structures, governance structures, etc.) as they may relate to varying measures of interpersonal trust between student affairs professionals and their evaluators.

6. The need to consider, for practice, positional status level difference as it relates to span of control management issues.