You might be familiar with a Ph.D. (doctor of philosophy) degree, but have you heard of a doctor of education (Ed.D.) degree? On the surface, the two are similar. Both degrees are designed for students who want to advance their knowledge in a specific area and learn everything they can about their specific niche. In practice, however, the two are quite different. An Ed.D. degree is favored by students who want to eventually leverage their knowledge into practice, while a Ph.D. emphasizes continuing research in the area in question. This article will explore Ed.D. students in particular and how they can apply educational theory to organizational health.
Students interested in pursuing an Ed.D. degree should be prepared for rigorous studies in many different areas of education, including a lot of focus on educational theories. Luckily, the compensation for the hard work and knowledge is reflected in the median Ed.D. degree salary. With an Ed.D. degree behind you, you can significantly increase your salary expectations. Students can pursue degrees with established universities, like Marymount University, as they move through their education. Marymount’s online Doctor of Education degree, in particular, is a well-designed course with the express goal of producing competent and successful professionals in a variety of different roles.
Ed.D. degrees are an excellent option for people who want to make tangible changes in their field of choice. More specifically, this particular degree program is especially helpful for hands-on action. Many Ed.D. graduates work in leadership and organizational development after graduation thanks to the principles that educational theory, which serves as the foundation of Ed.D. degrees, has instilled in them. From helping businesses boost and maintain their overall health to leading organizations to new heights, there are many different ways they can thrive.
Before we can look more closely at the specific areas where Ed.D. students can apply educational theory to organizational health, let’s take a closer look at what educational theory looks like.
What is an educational theory?
Educational theory is an umbrella term that houses several different theories. These often differ from one another quite a bit, but they do have at least one thing in common. Educational theories explain the purpose of education and learning as well as the learning process and the interpretation of learning itself.
According to a 2016 report, educational theory revolves around the science of learning. It seeks to answer the question “How does someone learn?” and focuses on not only the type of instruction that is most effective to facilitate learning but also what kind of students benefit from specific theories. One of the foundational elements of educational theory is the idea that learning is not a passive endeavor. Instructors must understand the goals of their students along with the challenges of teaching their topic of choice and develop effective instruction plans accordingly.
How does all of this apply to organizations and Ed.D. students? Ed.D. students who succeed in their studies learn to apply all five primary educational learning theories to their future professional pursuits. These are behaviorism, humanism, cognitive theory, connectivism, and constructivism.
Behaviorism is the idea that students behave depending on their interactions with their environments. It looks at how external rather than internal factors influence behavior and learning. Humanism looks at what it means to be human. Everyone has needs that must be met, and when all of them are satisfied, students are most prepared to learn. Instructors create classroom environments that encourage students to self-actualize their physical and emotional needs. Cognitive learning theory examines how both external and internal influences affect the mental processes related to learning. Connectivism focuses on the connections people form as they learn and grow, including personal connections with other people, connections with professional roles, and connections with their obligations. All of these influence the way individual people learn. Constructivism is a learning theory based on the idea that students construct their own system through which they learn. The system is based on their previous experiences and knowledge, and they run future experiences through past experiences to assimilate the information and knowledge in question.
By applying educational theory in each of the above areas to a specific organization, students are able to identify areas in need of improvement in the business and leadership models in use. This, in turn, allows them to affect the health of the organization itself.
What does organizational health mean?
If you aren’t familiar with the idea of “organizational health,” you might not be alone. It isn’t a topic that people outside of business tend to consider very closely, at least not unless they’re studying the concept. According to McKinsey, organizational health refers to an organization’s ability to unite for a common goal and around a common vision. It is not a one-time need so much as it is a cultural need in offices around the world. The healthiest organizations are those that understand what vision to push, how to engage employees and everyone else who interacts with the organization, and how to push through rocky times without sacrificing the vision mentioned above.
Consider organizational health leaders as captains. They are responsible for determining how organizations run, what goals they have to meet, and what precautions to take as the organization moves forward. Almost every facet of the business must be considered by organizational health leaders, who must also be able to project their decisions to the people around them. It is one thing to understand that A and B must change in order to achieve C, and another to successfully teach the people involved to make the necessary changes.
With the above in mind, you might have a better understanding of why educational theory is so pertinent to organizational health. Using educational theory allows leaders to systematically move through the different factors that influence their organization and their employees and refine and optimize processes as they go.
Let’s explore more specific ways that Ed.D. students can use educational theory to define organizational health.
How can Ed.D. students apply educational theory to organizational health?
Ed.D. students can have a significant influence on organizational health by applying educational theory in a few different areas:
- Understanding organizational health
- Leadership and transformational theory
- Constructivist learning theories
- Inclusive educational practices
- Communications and systems theory
- Assessment
- Feedback
In this section, we’ll explore how students apply each of the above to help ensure organizational success as they pursue their careers in a variety of different fields.
Understanding organizational health
We discussed the definition of educational theory above, but one of the main takeaways was that the relevant theories revolve around the idea that learning is not a passive experience but rather one that has many influences. From the environment in which students learn to the demands their local communities place upon them, many different factors must be taken into consideration when helping students improve their learning ability.
The same can be said for organizational health. Organizational health is more than an occasional assessment. You cannot simply have an annual review of the organization, make a couple of nominal changes, and expect great things. On the contrary, you must be prepared to dive into the specifics of the organization and everyone involved in its success. Educational theory helps Ed.D. students assess organizations both as a whole as well as individual departments to determine how processes can be streamlined or changed to improve an organization’s strength of vision and flexibility for the future.
Leadership and transformational theory
Transformational leadership theory revolves around the idea that instead of implementing consequences for failed goals, motivating employees to see success on their own is by far the more successful leadership style. Transformational leaders have the skills necessary to help employees develop a passion for their careers, create a vision they want to see through and take the steps needed to fulfill it. Consider these leaders as experts in mobilizing the people around them to take greater responsibility for the success of the organization, along with helping them see the value in their work.
Ed.D. students can take transformational leadership theory as part of their educational theory of choice and apply it to every aspect of the organization in question. The goal is to empower leaders to help their employees grow while also effecting permanent change in the industry along the way. By putting transformational theory into practice, Ed.D. students emphasize changing faulty systems in favor of building effective teams full of inspired employees to boost overall job satisfaction and productivity.
Constructivist learning theories
Organizations don’t exist in a vacuum. Despite their best attempts, leaders must recognize that external influences will always have an impact on their business. Instead of working to keep these influences out of the office, Ed.D. students can make use of constructivist learning theories to use diverse experiences to help employees learn new skills and abilities. Both of these can then be used to help improve overall organizational health even further.
Constructivist learning theories focus on the idea that people filter knowledge acquisition through filters of their own construction that influence how they internalize and use a given piece of information. When applied to organizational health, constructivism recognizes that professionals from different backgrounds will acquire knowledge differently. This impacts the way that they then use the knowledge they acquire. Sometimes, employees from a specific background will be able to use information more effectively than other workers. Understanding this helps organizations build stronger workforces where individual employees are able to use their expertise and experiences to strengthen their professional skills rather than hide them in an attempt to fit in with the rest of the crowd.
Ed.D. students interested in using constructivist learning theories in improving organizational health must be prepared to adapt the way they train employees in deference to their unique experiences as individuals. While a unified workforce is always the goal, that does not mean that employees must be identical in their approach.
Inclusive educational practices
In a similar vein to the constructivist theories described above, inclusive educational practices emphasize constructing environments that welcome everyone. This can be particularly challenging in certain industries where the workforce is just beginning to diversify, and it is not unusual for cultures favoring specific ethnicities and genders to remain in place even after the face of the organization begins to change.
Utilizing inclusive educational practices, Ed.D. students can transform workplaces that are tailored to suit a very specific kind of employee into vibrant office cultures that thrive on the addition of new opinions and new opportunities for growth. On a broad level, inclusive educational practices operate with the belief that everyone can learn and succeed, can interact with their peers constructively, should receive knowledge that suits their needs and enhances their ability to do their job, and should have access to professional opportunities suiting their interests and strengths as they appear.
Workplaces that are flexible enough to shift as the workforce demands it are healthy enough to survive future stress and even unforeseen challenges. Ed.D. students have the opportunity and knowledge to help build dynamic organizations well-suited to shifting social beliefs, practices, and needs.
Communications and systems theory
Systems theory revolves around the idea that nothing is truly independent. It states that almost every facet of life is influenced by another, and it is impossible to truly isolate one part of life from the other. Global warming is one of the best-known topics where systems theory is often used. Activists point out that the climate matters to everyone and everything on Earth, and if it becomes unstable or becomes more extreme, everyone is at risk. Individual actions matter because they affect everything on Earth.
The systems theory, when applied to communication, explores the interconnectedness of human communication, but not necessarily only with each other. Some scholars are more interested in how people communicate and interact with organizations. They might ask questions such as, “Why does one store have a loyal following over the other, even when products and prices are similar?” Aldi fans, for example, might make Aldi their exclusive shop for groceries even when Publix has better deals.
Communications and systems theory can be used to determine why organizations succeed in their communication with their customers. Ed.D. students can use the theory to analyze how people see the organization in question and how the organization can communicate with its followers and fans in order to facilitate growth. The result is a stronger, healthier organization with a solid idea about its place in the market.
Assessment and feedback
So far, we’ve talked quite a bit about how Ed.D. students can affect change in organizations. The discussion has mostly revolved around actions they can take to refine and optimize specific processes or areas. In this section, however, we’ll focus more on how they can determine if the actions they’re taking are effective.
Assessment is one of the fundamental aspects of educational theory as a whole. How can we be sure that someone has truly acquired knowledge if we don’t test that knowledge? Assessment refers to the act of evaluating the quality, ability, or nature of something or someone. When used in education, assessment refers specifically to evaluating a student’s understanding of a specific piece of knowledge. When used in organizational health, assessment refers to determining what changes are working and which need to be further refined or removed entirely.
Organizational health is not a one-time evaluation. We’ve mentioned this before, but it’s important to highlight it once more. Assessing is something that must be done regularly, and Ed.D. students are well-prepared to conduct valid, accurate assessments of their organizational health efforts.
Feedback is the logical pairing to assessment. Ed.D. students must not only give feedback as their assessments dictate but must also be prepared to receive and use feedback as they seek to strengthen the organization in question. If you notice that a specific department is falling behind in some way, for example, you must reach out to that department and let everyone know that something needs to change.
Perhaps when you do that, however, you learn that your proposed change conflicts with the department’s duties. In the latter situation, you must be flexible enough to reassess the situation and develop a different solution.
Conclusion
Ed.D. students have the knowledge needed to build strong, healthy organizations poised to thrive in the future. Using the theories and techniques described above, they can apply educational theory to their work and help businesses grow. If you are interested in learning more about Ed.D. degrees and how you can become an expert in organizational health, keep the information above in mind as you seek out educational opportunities to hone your skills.
