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Abstract
This study measured and tested Senges fifth discipline model of learning organizations in a culturally different population, the context of Korean Vocational high schools. Participants were full-time vocational and academic teachers of 976 in public trade industry-technical and business high schools. This study includes three research focuses. First, by using exploratory factor analysis, responses from Korean vocational high school teachers to questionnaire items designed to test the theoretical constructs and indices of Senges learning organization model were analyzed to establish a measurement model. Second, the hypothesized model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. Thus, results provided strong evidence for the construct validity of the measurement model (i.e., instrument) to measure the learning organization concept in school contexts. Third, multi-group confirmatory factor analysis referred to the factorial invariance tests that examined how generalizable the hypothesized learning organization model was for the two different teacher groups (vocational and academic teachers). Factorial invariance was detected across the two teacher groups. Consequently, the results and findings of this study provides strong evidence that the five disciplines of the learning organization model can be operationalized, measured, and applied in Korean educational contexts. At the level of extendingand generalizing learning organization theory, the creation of a measurement model related to the idea of schools as learning organizations and confirmation of the generalizability of Senges learning organization theory to culturally different organizations are important contributions to the literature on learning organizations. Results of this study support the notion that the theory of learning organization and related concepts, initially developed against the background of Western culture, can also apply to a South Korean school context which reflects Asian culture.