Investigating Psychological Safety Among School Board Directors: Understanding the Relationships Between Contextual Challenges on Learning and Decision-Making

Background: Psychological safety has been examined throughout many industrial-organizational and healthcare industries but has only recently been applied to the educational setting. It has not been studied within the context of school boards of directors. Purpose: To explore relationships between psychological safety, individual and team learning, and defensive decision-making among school board directors and learn more about challenges associated with serving. Subjects: 158 school board directors in Washington State in spring 2023. Research Design: Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to learn more about how previous tools could measure similar constructs within the governance level of educational systems. Qualitative analysis was conducted to understand the contextual challenges that provide insights into ongoing professional learning support. Findings: Five factors were found in this revised survey instrument, containing elements from the Team Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior Survey and the Defensive Decision-Making Survey . Factor scores indicated a strong positive correlation (r = .73, p < .001) between Team learning behavior and Team psychological safety . Qualitative analysis revealed challenges related to both internal and external factors, including board member relations, lack of communication, divisiveness due to state/political mandates, and angry community members. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the importance of understanding school board members’ motivations for speaking up, making decisions, promoting individual and team learning, and promoting psychological safety. Understanding school boards’ challenges can help develop ongoing professional development aligned to their needs and circumstances.