Executive fire officers' strategic thinking capabilities and the relationship with information and communication technology

This study investigates the relationship of executive fire officers' use of strategic thinking skills and their proficiency using information and communication technology. A non-experimental quantitative study design was employed. The study consisted of 400 graduates of the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program. The use of strategic thinking skills was measured by the Strategic Thinking Questionnaire (STQv6) (Pisapia & Reyes-Guerra, 2007). The use of information and communication technology tools was measured by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Fluency Questionnaire (Hilberg, 2007). The EFOs' strategic thinking capabilities of systems thinking (3.58 +/- .447) and reflecting (3.82 +/- .445) compared to previously reported samples from the literature, both empirically and theoretically. Depending upon the sample, some means were significantly higher and others were significantly lower. The strategic thinking questionnaire and the ICT fluency questionnaire were not directly correlated to one another ; however, there were some strong correlations within their subscales. ICT fluency and ICT comfort were highly correlated (r = .516), as well as systems thinking and reflecting (r = .688) at the 0.05 level. There was a significant correlation between age and ICT comfort (r = -.235), as well as between years of experience and ICT comfort (r = -.203) at the 0.05 level. Age moderated the relationship between systems thinking*reflection, and ICT comfort. Race moderated the relationship between systems thinking*reflection, and ICT education/training. This research was significant because it was the first time that Executive Fire Officers have been studied regarding their strategic thinking capabilities and their information and communications technology fluency.