УНИВЕРСИТЕТ
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15 сентября 18.00 - 19.00 ВОРКШОП "Как вовлечь студентов в обучение онлайн" Презентация М.Уорфорда, Buffalo State College SUNY, США
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УНИВЕРСИТЕТ
- 1. Educational innovation diffusion: Confronting complexities Keynote address delivered to the Center for the Study of Educational Innovations Higher School of Economics Moscow, Russia September 13, 2015 Mark K. Warford, PhD Buffalo State College (SUNY) 1300 Elmwood Ave. Buffalo, NY 14222 warformk@buffalostate.edu
- 2. Introduction • DIEM (Diffusion of Innovations in Education Model) proposed in 2005 • Sources: Everett Rogers’ (1995) Diffusion of Innovations (DoI)…
- 4. Introduction • Lessons from research: The complexity of change in education demands a shift of emphasis from innovation to adaptation.
- 5. Origins of research in the diffusion of educational innovations • Gabriel Tarde (1903): Diffusion of inventions
- 6. Origins of research in the diffusion of educational innovations • Paul Mort’s Diffusion of adaptations
- 7. Origins of research in the diffusion of educational innovations • Ryan and Gross (1943): Diffusion of innovations Hybrid seed corn
- 8. Origins of research in the diffusion of educational innovations • Everett Rogers’ (1962): Diffusion of innovations
- 9. Origins of research in the diffusion of educational innovations • Bias favoring source over receiver side in the diffusion of educational innovations. • “We have placed our faith in diffusion to a very high extent upon the initiation of individual communities and here given but little attention to the problem of how diffusion comes about" (Mort & Cornell, 1941, p. 3).
- 10. Origins of research in the diffusion of educational innovations • Bias favoring source over receiver side in the diffusion of educational innovations. • Diffusion in educational contexts: “on the side of sources, not receivers of innovation diffusion” (Rogers & Jain, 1968, p. 1)
- 11. Origins of research in the diffusion of educational innovations • Seeds of a paradox: • Both Mort and Rogers… • …depict diffusion in one direction: from source to receiver • …acknowledge that educational innovations are acted upon by educators through adaptation (Mort) / re-invention (Rogers)
- 12. Linear or spiral-like? Antecedents Process Consequences Consequences Antecedents Process
- 13. The diffusion of diffusion studies Diffusion of the Diffusion of Innovations Critical Mass (Criticality)
- 14. Conclusions from DIEM study: • The nature of educational change is highly complex. While DoI provides a useful framework for conceptual clarity in designing and measuring the impact of educational innovations, it is clear that there are dynamic socio-organizational forces that are particular to the field of education- a finding that needs further verification in order to merit a significant contribution to a general theory of DoI. (Warford, 2005, p. 28)
- 15. A look at the last decade in educational innovation diffusion research
- 16. A core frustration… • Educational innovations are in the eye of the beholder (Hunkins & Ornstein, 1989). • Knowledge of an innovation does not necessarily change the adopting educator’s perspective (Warford, 2005). • Policy mandates get the ‘stink eye’ (Warford, 2005)
- 17. Units or social systems of adoption: Emergent Marxist perspectives The social-organizational factor in educational innovation diffusion: • It takes an organization to adopt an educational innovation. • Larger social system may help or hinder (Abdelrehim, 2014; Warford, 2005).
- 18. Social Capital (Frank, Zhou & Borman, 2004) • Concept borrowed from Bourdieu (1986): • “the potential to access resources through social relations” (p. 149). Complementary forms of capital: financial, physical, human. • Antecedent variables (from Rogers): size, complexity, and degree of centralization. • Consequences (implementation) variables (from Rogers): agenda setting, restructuring, clarifying, routinizing. Social capital accounts for variance. • Social capital exerts a sort of peer pressure that propels the sharing of expertise.
- 19. Social Capital (Frank, Zhou & Borman, 2004) • Results: • Registered 196 different classroom uses for computer-based educational innovations. • Policy mandate potentially undermined level of implementation (Bush’s No Child Left Behind, a.k.a. No Child Left Untested). • Social capital exerted a significant—though not exclusive—influence on educators’ implementation.
- 20. Activity Theory (Karasavvidis, 2009) • Two central concerns of teachers: • Time: as familiarity decreases, demands on feasibility increase: time to plan, to test out, reflect, share with colleagues… • Compatibility: Teachers retrofit innovation to fit status quo…
- 21. Engeström’s (1999) Cultural- Historical Activity Theory model
- 22. “Covering the curriculum” • Internet Computer Technology (ICT) as the innovation or ‘Activity Object’ • Conflicts between ICT use and perceptions of policy mandate pressures to ‘cover the curriculum’ • Ironically, ‘covering the curriculum’ was antithetical to what the authors of the policy had in mind (more student-centered pedagogy)
- 23. Findings from Frank et al. (2004) and Karasavvidis (2009). • There is no such thing as an individual adopter in educational settings: teachers-as-socio- organizational agents. • Even seemingly straightforward innovations are subject to complex and dynamic systems of shared meanings. Innovations are not transmitted; they are mediated. • Balancing the pressures of job stress, policy innovations and innovation overload, in general, adaptation is compensatory, if not obligatory.
- 24. Testing new statistical models for the diffusion of innovations in education • Leejoeiwara (2013) on Thai students’ intentions to adopt online learning (N=542). • Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (based on Ajzen, 1991). • Added more variables sensitive to realities of the receiver context. • Added ‘Self-Directed Learning’
- 25. Testing new statistical models for the diffusion of innovations in education
- 26. Testing new statistical models for the diffusion of innovations in education • ‘Factors Related to Individual Adopters’ had highest cause degree, ‘School Culture’ lowest, though Principal Leadership and School Boards exerted strong influence on implementation. • Existence of an ‘Adaptability’ Master-Dispatcher cluster at the head of Coordinating with External Agencies, Funding, Perceived Need for Proposed Innovation, Teachers’ Attitudes and Concerns, Compatibility, and Perceived Benefits.
- 27. Synthesizing findings from factor analytical studies • Varied, imagined ‘others’ swaying adoption decisions. • Western ‘Individualistic’ vs. Eastern ‘Collectivistic’ cultural distinctions may be overrated. • Central role for Adaptation: Master- Dispatcher.
- 28. Case study approaches to the study of educational innovation diffusion • Origins: Henrichsen (1989), Mort and Cornell (1941) and Warford (2005). • New paradigm: mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative). • Campbell (2015): Videoconference Technology (VT) in nursing education. Methods: individual and focus group interviews, direct observation; inclusion of non-adopters. • Findings: pinpointing adoption not that easy; utility of studying and using implementation findings to inform re-invention.
- 29. Case study approaches to the study of educational innovation diffusion • Kamau (2014): studied diffusion of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in education of autistic students. • Four obstacles: • 1) Innovation characteristics (complexity) • 2) Lack of resources • 3) Adopter characteristics • 4) Systemic (leadership) factors • Plans for policy mandates also found to be lacking in attention to implementation side.
- 30. Case Study Considerations • Selection of the adopting unit. • Time dimensions: during or after? • If during, care in NOT putting students and teachers at risk, if implementation still in- process. • Space dimensions: school, state, region, country? • Document analysis, in addition to individual and focus-group surveys, direct observation.
- 31. Complexity and emergence • акроним оповещения! • DIM= Diffusion of Innovations Model (Rogers, 1962, 1995, 2003) • CAS= Complex Adaptive Systems • DST= Dynamic(al) Systems Theory
- 32. Complexity and emergence • Rogers, Medina, Rivera and Wiley (2005) on connections between Diffusion of Innovations Model (DIM) and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS): • Both emphasize change as emergent. • Both affirm value of heterogeneous networks (heterophilous, in DIM) as conducive to change.
- 33. Complexity and emergence • Bifurcation points in DIM and CAS: • If a-symmetrical, a bifurcation cascade is unleashed, propelling initial diffusion. • If symmetrical, no change can be accommodated; system is not adaptive. • Raises questions about policy mandates and standardized testing (Frank et al., 2005; Karasavvidis, 2009).
- 34. Complexity and emergence • Variety (CAS) = heterophily (DIM); essential for requirement of “adaptation and emergence” (p. 6). • Need for reactivity at edge of the system. • Criticality (CAS) = Critical Mass (DIM). Point where strange attractor (CAS) / innovation (DIM) is accommodated, adapted.
- 35. Dynamic(al) Systems Theory (Nicolescu & Petrescu, 2013) • Educational settings are a lot like an ecosystem, a self-organizing system. • Innovations may set a school culture into a state of disequilibrium by establishing a conflict between new and established information (not necessarily a bad thing!) • Observability of results tempers initial reactions against the change.
- 36. Implications of complexity theories • Social Capital may emerge (or at least be needed) on the upward spikes of the S-shaped diffusion curve. • Tension between need for comfort and accommodating a strange attractor (innovation).
- 37. Discussion and suggested directions • Binary essence of culture and cognition, imbued in conflict. • Moving from binary to blended thinking suggested in CAS. • Need to shift from ‘innovation’ (binary) to adaptation (blended) focus. • Open up the directionality: Maybe the innovators and change agents are in the classroom, laggards in the boardroom!
- 39. Lessons from Frankencorn • The velocity and variety of edible innovations, much like the educational innovations of our time, have yielded mutant, products of questionable worth borne of a business model that is stingy on the development side, favoring capital aggregation over quality and differentiation; • edible and educational innovations, respectively, have been rendered literally and figuratively indigestible.
- 40. From DIEM to DEAM: Diffusion of Educational ADAPTATIONS Model
- 41. Spasibo! • Пожалуйста, голосуйте за Уорфорд!
Editor's Notes
- Introduction Ten years ago, I proposed a Diffusion of Innovations in Education Model (Warford, 2005). The DIEM (Figure 1), which was constructed upon Rogers´ (1995) Diffusion of Innovations Model (DIM). Both the DIM and DIEM lay out a linear and temporal path of variables from Antecedent (background) variables to Process dimensions that center on the decision to adopt, culminating with Consequences variables, which consider the ultimate rejection vs. confirmation of the adoption decision.
- Both the DIM and DIEM lay out a linear and temporal path of variables from Antecedent (background) variables to Process dimensions that center on the decision to adopt, culminating with Consequences variables, which consider the ultimate rejection vs. confirmation of the adoption decision.
- The core of the DIEM, however, was informed by a parallel but otherwise ignored strain of diffusion research within the field of education, one that actually preceded Rogers’ rise as the patriarch of DoI. The goal of this address is to reclaim this deeper thread in research on educational change and to critically examine key studies from the past decade, many of which are linked to the DIEM. A synthesis of the aforementioned investigation leads to some key discoveries about the complexities of educational innovation diffusion and fundamental changes with regard to how best to confront them. An essential element of these lessons is a shift of focus from innovation to adaptation.
- In the diffusion of DoI Rogers´ (2003) contribution, to borrow from the constructs he popularized, was to be the Early Majority Adopter who propelled this field of research into the mainstream. Though diffusion of innovations was picked up in agricultural research, the first major published diffusion study following Gabriel Tarde´s (1903) pioneering work in developing a theory of the diffusion of inventions
- came from Paul Mort and his protégés, Francis Griffith Cornell and William Vincent. Mort and Cornell´s (1941) regional case study of the diffusion of adaptations in the Pennsylvania education system was published a full two years before…
- Ryan and Gross´s (1943) diffusion of innovations study of hybrid seed corn adoption in the Midwest, a study that would later be taken up and popularized by Rogers in the 60s (1962). It is estimated that the number of diffusion studies quadrupled at this time (Rogers, 2003, in Kinnunen, 1996), and it is clear that innovation, rather than inventions or adaptations, had emerged as the construct of focus in diffusion studies.
- Mort, in a field alleged to favor the source rather than the receiver perspective on diffusion, honored the ultimate authority of the receivers of educational adaptations: “We have placed our faith in diffusion to a very high extent upon the initiation of individual communities and here given but little attention to the problem of how diffusion comes about" (Mort & Cornell, 1941, p. 3).
- Rogers and Jain (1968) advanced a similar stance, alleging a bias against the receivers in educational innovation diffusion. While on the surface Mort and Rogers appear to champion the adoption-side, they also edified a one-way path for the diffusion of educational innovations (or adaptations). For Mort (1941) it was the practitioners, not the purveyors, who must adapt, though he lay most of the burden for the failure of educational change on poor oversight and lack of funding. The same could be said for Rogers’ (2003) DoI perspective, though he substitutes the term adaptation with re-invention, perceived to be a necessary process for clearing the one-way path from the innovation to its implementation.
- Rogers and Jain (1968) advanced a similar stance, alleging a bias against the receivers in educational innovation diffusion. While on the surface Mort and Rogers appear to champion the adoption-side, they also edified a one-way path for the diffusion of educational innovations (or adaptations). For Mort (1941) it was the practitioners, not the purveyors, who must adapt, though he lay most of the burden for the failure of educational change on poor oversight and lack of funding. The same could be said for Rogers’ (2003) DoI perspective, though he substitutes the term adaptation with re-invention, perceived to be a necessary process for clearing the path from the innovation to its implementation.
- One can see here the seeds of a paradox that must be worked out: educational innovations are not merely transmitted one way from source-to-receiver; rather, they are subject to a re-iterative, dialogic process of meaning negotiation.
- In the researcher’s regional case study of the diffusion of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language’s (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines and the role teacher educators played in that process (Warford, 2005), the aforementioned studies served an invaluable role in better understanding the variability of educational innovation diffusion, perhaps raising more questions than providing answers. I concluded the study by acknowledging that the fit between DoI and educational change was anything but perfect: the nature of educational change is highly complex. While DoI provides a useful framework for conceptual clarity in designing and measuring the impact of educational innovations, it is clear that there are dynamic socio-organizational forces that are particular to the field of education- a finding that needs further verification in order to merit a significant contribution to a general theory of DoI. (p. 28) The preceding investigation of the history of research in the diffusion of educational innovations, as it turns out, prefigured some important emergent realities that have been further illuminated in related studies from the past decade, adding up to the notion that new ideas and technologies in education are ultimately subject to shared meanings and complex systemic interconnections.
- A core frustration that arises in educational diffusion studies centers on the ‘eye of the beholder’ factor; educational innovations, perhaps more so than other innovations, are subject to the complexities of shared meanings (Hunkins & Ornstein, 1989) and the need to adapt new ideas and practices in education to localized realities. Warford (2005) found that, contrary to DoI predictions, more knowledge of the innovation in question appeared to potentially undermine adoption and implementation. Also policy mandate related to the innovation of focus in the study significantly undermined adoption and implementation. As you will see, a common thread that unites the major studies in educational innovations brings us back to a confrontation with complexities and critical need for negotiation of meaning and adaptation in the diffusion process. This confrontation leads to a critical examination of the very nature of innovation.
- Rogers and Jain (1968) highlighted long ago the strong socio-organizational factors that influence teachers’ adoption of innovations. Sometimes factors influencing teacher adoption decisions reach well beyond the brick and mortar of the school complex. For example, Abdelrehim’s (2014) study of the diffusion of edublogs as an educational tool in Egypt found that the local community potentially undermined the adoption of edublogs, offering further support to similar findings in my DIEM study (Warford, 2005). In the past decade, studies influenced by such assumptions have drawn attention from the macro- to the micro-level scale of DoI, demonstrating how thinking is intricately connected to social context. Following are two studies of critical interest in the study of the diffusion of computer-based educational innovations, and both have roots in Marxist theories.
- Frank, Zhao and Borman’s (2004) study challenges notions of the teacher as an individual agent in the use of educational innovations. The central construct of interest for the authors was social capital, a term fashioned and popularized by Bourdieu (1986) and constellated by other forms of capital, such as financial, physical or human varieties. Social capital, is constituted by “the potential to access resources through social relations” (p. 149). While affirming Rogers’ (1995) focus on antecedent variables like size, complexity, and degree of centralization, as well as his framework for implementation (agenda setting, restructuring, clarifying and routinizing), they argue that social capital is uniquely suited to educational contexts. In applying social capital to DoI in educational organizations, there are alleged to be two relevant realities of school work life associated with social capital: 1) “members of an organization derive important benefits from the organization, including social and psychological rewards, access to resources, information, and status” (p. 150). The authors argue that Social Capital accounts for variance in implementation. They portray a (re)iterative process, propelled by social capital, which exerts a sort of peer pressure that propels the sharing of expertise.
- Results, in addition to confirming multiple measures of social capital’s influence on implementation of computer technology, indicated a total of 196 different classroom uses for computers per year. The authors also determined that a policy mandate (No Child Left Behind) potentially undermined the quality of implementation of computer-based educational innovations. Frank et al. (2004) conclude by warning that social capital, as with more material forms of capital, is a finite resource.
- Karasavvidis (2009) divides the essential concerns of teachers related to adopting ICT (Internet-Based Computer Technology) innovations into two realms: time and compatibility, variables that are certainly of interest in DoI. As regards time, Karasavvidis (2009) argues that time is a function of familiarity and feasibility. In DoI terms, we may roughly translate familiarity to the complexity construct in DoI, a well-established inhibiting factor in innovation adoption. In order to be perceived as feasible, more complex innovations require time to plan, try out and reflect on implementation in collegial contexts. Compatibility, for the author, has more in common with a key innovation characteristic in DoI: relative advantage, again, as it involves weighing alternatives. However, the result is very shallow implementation, as teachers end up implementing the new idea or practice in ways that do not alter existing practices significantly.
- As depicted in Figure 2, Karasavvidis’s (2009) study centered on Activity Theory, which has its origins in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of mind. The triangle diagram represents Engeström’s (1999) Cultural-Historical Activity Theory model. As you can see, Rules, Community and Division of Labor, what Rogers (2003) would recognize as antecedent variables, undergirding Mediational Artifacts that connect a Subject to an Object. Borrowing from Frank, Zhao and Borman (2004), we may envision the additional varieties of human capital (financial, physical, human) on the right side of the CHAT triangle’s base (Community, Division of Labor). What CHAT refers to as Subject, we can roughly translate to the adopting teacher, though, as has been argued and further buttressed by the bottom of the triangle, one cannot divorce the teacher as an isolated agent without considering his or her students, the school culture and the larger community to which it is accountable. The Object, as seen through a DoI lens, would be the educational innovation, its adoption, implementation and eventual confirmation or rejection. Quite often, innovations ignore the teacher perspectives and realities, even though the innovation is bound to be received in light of existing teacher beliefs, perspectives, attitudes and practices. ´Mediating artifacts´ is a term generally associated with Vygotsky’s notion of psychological (semiotic) tools that may take physical form, as in the case of a computer.
- In delivering a blended (face-to-face and online instruction) training program designed to simultaneously model and educate teachers (N=51) regarding ICT integration into teaching, Karasavvidis (2009) investigated teacher concerns about ICT innovations and their conceptions about how best to implement them. Through the CHAT lens, the author uncovered several key conflicts related to the targeted ICT innovation, or in CHAT terms, the Activity Object. These conflicts centered on the teachers’ inability to accommodate ICT due to their perceived pressure to ‘cover the curriculum’, which originated in a policy mandate. Ironically, ICT was actually favorable to the student-centered ideology that drove the mandate.
- Three important findings come to light in the aforementioned studies. First, the traditional DoI focus on the individual adopter is problematic given that teachers are social agents who are tethered to socio-organizational pressures. To borrow from Hunkins and Ornstein (1989), a teacher beholds educational innovation through multiple sets of eyes. Second, even the use of even the most seemingly straightforward innovations, in this case, computers, is subject to complex and dynamic systems of shared meanings. Finally, and perhaps consequent to the aforementioned points, one begins to appreciate the stress under which teachers use educational innovations. Under such circumstances, adaptation, for better or worse, is obligatory.
- Two recent statistical studies from Southeast Asia demonstrate how the focus on factors, in contrast to the classic DoI focus on discrete variables (adopter, innovation characteristics), generates more nuanced measurement of educational innovation diffusion, suggesting intricate paths and clustering of those variables. Leejoeiwara (2013) studied Thai students’ intentions to adopt online learning (N=542). Figure 4 shows his adapted Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (based on Ajzen, 1991), which adjusted some of the variables around a better balance between source and receiver varieties, and added the factor, Self-Directed Learning. This factor, as you can see, finds an uninterrupted path to the adoption decision, accounting for nearly a third of the variance in the path model depicted here. Perceived Trialability and Relative Advantage were not significantly related to the intention to learn online. With regard to the latter, the study raises an important issue in studying innovations: what is the basis of comparison? In the case of this study, respondents were unclear with regard to what would constitute more traditional alternatives. Also depicted in this figure are multiple and varied social pressures on the adoption decision. Interestingly ‘Superiors’ did not exert an influence, whereas peers, perceived ‘respectable others’ and other figures in the social milieu indeed influenced the decision. Though the authors tie results to Hofstede’s (2001) distinction between Asian Collectivism and Western Individualism, the varied impact of the social milieu and the direct path from self-directed learning suggests a balanced blending of social and cognitive factors in determining influences on innovation adoption.
- Two recent statistical studies from Southeast Asia demonstrate how the focus on factors, in contrast to the classic DoI focus on discrete variables (adopter, innovation characteristics), generates more nuanced measurement of educational innovation diffusion, suggesting intricate paths and clustering of those variables. Leejoeiwara (2013) studied Thai students’ intentions to adopt online learning (N=542). Figure 4 shows his adapted Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (based on Ajzen, 1991), which adjusted some of the variables around a better balance between source and receiver varieties, and added the factor, Self-Directed Learning. This factor, as you can see, finds an uninterrupted path to the adoption decision, accounting for nearly a third of the variance in the path model depicted here. Perceived Trialability and Relative Advantage were not significantly related to the intention to learn online. With regard to the latter, the study raises an important issue in studying innovations: what is the basis of comparison? In the case of this study, respondents were unclear with regard to what would constitute more traditional alternatives. Also depicted in this figure are multiple and varied social pressures on the adoption decision. Interestingly ‘Superiors’ did not exert an influence, whereas peers, perceived ‘respectable others’ and other figures in the social milieu indeed influenced the decision. Though the authors tie results to Hofstede’s (2001) distinction between Asian Collectivism and Western Individualism, the varied impact of the social milieu and the direct path from self-directed learning suggests a balanced blending of social and cognitive factors in determining influences on innovation adoption.
- In Taiwan, Tang, Chang, and Sheu (2015) tested Durlak and DuPre’s (2008) adapted Multiple Decision Criteria Model (MCDM), called DEMATEL-ANP (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory-Analytical Network Process), Among the cause degree results, ‘Factors Related to Individual Adopters’ received the highest cause degree scores, whereas ‘School Culture’ registered no outputs and received the lowest score, securing its status on the receiving end of the adoption process. These results stand in contrast with just about every other study with regard to the school organizational factor, but perhaps this is idiosyncratic to education tied to business (tourism). ‘Adaptability’ constellated with six other factors seen as a dispatcher cluster: ‘Coordination with External agencies’, ‘Funding’, ‘Perceived Need for the Proposed Innovation’, ‘Teachers Attitudes and Concerns’, ‘Compatibility’, and ‘Perceived Benefits of the Proposed Innovation’. The authors note the cluster of ‘Perceived Need’ and ‘Perceived Benefit’ under ‘School Board and Principal Leadership’, whose high global weights suggested that these factors exerted a particularly strong influence on implementation. The latter results nuance the relatively low impact of School Culture.
- Leejoeiwara (2013) and Tang, Chang and Sheu (2015), in their own ways, map statistically and nuance the social influences on adopter behavior noted in studies within Marxist approaches to the study of educational change. What is novel and intriguing in these studies, however, is the possibility of imagined others who act as unseen cognitive coaches in the intention to adopt and implement educational innovations. In both cases, these imagined others were not necessarily the authorities in the particular educational organization of interest in the adopter’s context. For example, the leadership in the adopting system were relatively insignificant factors for Thai students in Leejoeiwara (2013), whereas Taiwanese respondents in Tang, Chang and Sheu (2015) were heavily influenced by authorities in the school organization. In general, both studies suggest that Hofstede’s Individualist-Collectivistic distinction between Western and Eastern cultures may not be so predictive. With regard to innovation characteristics, both studies underscore, in their own ways, the importance of room for the complexities of localized interpretation of the targeted innovation. Within this zeitgeist, we find that a factorial approach tells us more about the critical importance of adaptability, this ‘master-dispatcher’ factor that may subordinate innovation characteristics in DoI that have traditionally been considered in isolation as discrete variables.
- While Mort and Cornell (1941) and Warford (2005) primarily relied upon scale survey data, and Henrichsen (1989) relied mainly on historical records, more recent case studies have employed mixed-method designs, which point to the utility of integrating qualitative and quantitative data collection methods for deepening the discourse on ways to optimize the fit between DoI and educational contexts. Campbell’s (2015) investigation of implementing videoconferencing (VC) technology in undergraduate-level distance nursing education involved a combination of the following methods of data collection: direct classroom observation(40 hrs.), personal interviews, focus group interviews (one for each of two groups involved in distance education through VC) of nursing students experiencing VC technology (N=32, and end of course (EOC) summary statements. Results indicated that only six of the 32 students adopted (accepted) VC as implemented, which is of interest, considering that prior campus survey data suggested widespread acceptance of VC six years prior to the study he conducted. Campbell’s study pointed to several points of re-invention necessary to facilitate VC implementation, including: interaction, equipment and pedagogical modifications, as well as increased instructional technology, including a student orientation. The study also confirms that pinpointing confirmation of adoption in educational settings demands the exploration of multiple perspectives, including those of non-adopters (Rogers, 2003): while the administration declared victory, students were clearly more skeptical of the decision to adopt VC.
- Following a multiple case study approach, Kamau’s (2014) study centered on the nature of hindrances to the development of ABA-based autism programs. Four factors emerged as obstacles to ABA adoption: 1) innovation characteristics (complexity), 2) lack of resources, 3) adopter characteristics, and 4) systemic factors. Kamau’s study further highlighted the inhibiting effects of policy mandates and lack of attention to the receiver side of adoption in the diffusion of educational innovations (citing Rogers & Jain, 1968; Warford, 2005).
- Selection of an ‘adopting unit’ for a case study, as is the case with any study of the diffusion of innovations in education, must address the complex micro- to macro-level influences on educational innovation adoption. In addition to those methods followed by Campbell, document analysis (meeting minutes, executive summaries, relevant commentaries in the professional literature) is also an important component of any case study in educational innovation diffusion (Kamau, 2014; Warford, 2000). Especially with regard to more qualitative approaches like case studies, the researcher must be sensitive to the fact that students and teachers, down the chain in the educational organization, may be reluctant to deviate from administrative pressures to support the innovation under study. Defying such risks, Campbell’s (2014) and Kamau’s (2014) in-progress case studies may have sparked crucial conversations within the adopting schools with regard to re-invention in implementation.
- акроним оповещения! DIM= Diffusion of Innovations Model (Rogers, 1962, 1995, 2003) CAS= Complex Adaptive Systems DST= Dynamic(al) Systems Theory
- At this point, we have weighed the complex and dynamic interplay of mind and milieu in the diffusion of educational innovations. Such were the necessary compensations for the linear determinism that undermined a perfect fit between Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations Model (DIM) and my own study of the diffusion of educational innovations in the Southeast US (DIEM)(Warford, 2005). Unbeknownst to me, Rogers had set the next stage for DoI in an article in the same issue in which the DIEM was published, integrating findings from research in Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) into his Diffusion of Innovations Model (DIM). In comparing CAS with DIM, Rogers, Medina, Rivera, and Wiley (2005) affirm a shared emphasis on emergence (adaptation, in CAS). Though DIM generally favors homophilous channels, communication chains between those with similar styles and preferences, he and his colleagues suggest that DIM affirms the utility of heterogeneous (or heterophilous) networks, which challenge the complex adaptive (or adopting) system to pass through the crucible of change in order to accommodate some new agent representing a larger system configuration.
- According to Rogers et al., bifurcation points may, if they are temporally a-symmetrical, point to a CAS, in which case a bifurcation cascade is unleashed and there is no return home to the way things were before; if symmetrical, then the system is essentially deterministic and not complex, and it is possible to reverse the diffusion back to the original antecedent state prior to the diffusion campaign. In other words, the system is complex but not adaptive. It may be revealed in future studies that educational systems under increasing pressure to prepare students for standardized tests are deprived of their adaptability (Frank, Zhou & Borman, 2005; Karasavvidis, 2009).
- Variety and Reactivity are also features of both DIM and CAS. Variety, in CAS is a principle of diversity within a system that is roughly equivalent to the DIM construct, heterophily. In both cases, there is some optimal threshold of difference required for the system to satisfy the requirements of “adaptation and emergence” (p. 6). In both DIM and CAS, some capacity for reactivity is necessary in the heterogeneous (heterophilous) fringes of the system. A closer look at the onset of bifurcation or in CAS, or criticality, finds fit with the notion of ‘critical mass’ DIM, where it is highlighted in the leaps in the diffusion curve, the rising sections of the ‘S-curve’. That first spike, they argue, depends on a confrontation with uncertainty within the adopting (or adapting, in CAS) system. To the extent that potential adopting systems have the flexibility to re-invent an innovation, or in CAS and Mort’s terms, adapt it to better fit with its norms and practices, diffusion, adoption and implementation processes are is facilitated. The adaptive nature of feedback also reinforces the move from linear to linkage models of educational innovation diffusion (Huberman, 1983).
- Within the family of theories rooted in studies of Complexity, Dynamic(al) Systems Theory (DST) serves as a cousin framework for CAS, Using DST as a base, Nicolescu and Petrescu (2013) assert that educational settings are a lot like an ecosystem, a self-organizing system in which innovations may set a school culture into a state of disequilibrium by establishing a conflict between new and established information. Mathematically, this picture portrays dynamic, not linear process, one that depends on the dance of nonlinear differential equations whose results must be observable, both in the mathematical sense, as well as in the DoI sense of observable benefits of an educational intervention (innovation).
- From a CAS or DST perspective, one might hypothesize that Social Capital emerges not on the smooth, horizontal momentum of the ‘S’-shaped diffusion curve, but rather in those moments of disequilibrium in the system, the vertical spots that reflect the spike imbued in Early Adopter use of the innovation and the second spike as diffusion hits the ‘critical mass’, the point of no-return, just before its confirmation is all but assured. It seems logical that the comfort concern would emerge during the turbulent upward spikes in the diffusion trajectory, when an otherwise steady state of equilibrium in the school culture is disrupted by a strange attractor that may need to be integrated in order to maintain its fitness as a complex adaptive system.
- A common theme that emerges in recent studies is a potential binary bind in educational innovation diffusion. Conflict re-emerges, directly or indirectly, in all of the aforementioned studies, thriving on polarities, and in the diffusion of educational innovations, there certainly seems to be no shortage of such conflict. The binary of the CAS, with its bifurcation cascades triggered by the intrusion of an innovation certainly seem to suggest a counter-attack of the ‘old ways’ that spike the diffusion rate, eventually ensuring full adoption and implementation, but ultimately there is a re-iterative permeability between the status quo and the emergent system, a blending, if you will. Let us also remember, returning to Tarde and Mort, indeed, even in Rogers’ classic DIM model, that some measure of adaptation within the developing system is necessary to ‘find fit’ between established practices and new ways represented in the innovation. Such moderate, expansive thinking is particularly important in educational settings if we accept that innovation is ultimately in the ‘eye of the beholder’. Perhaps our attention should not be so myopically focused on innovation but instead centered on how innovations are adapted in educational systems. The message of this strange attractor is quite clear and resonates with the findings of CAS: it’s not about innovation; Innovation, with its worn-out unilateral exaltation of old over new, innovator over laggard, velocity over volition, has come face to face with the orbiting strange attractor that now reveals itself as adaptation. With regard to characterizations of the stakeholders in educational innovation diffusion, we should neither be surprised to find that (imagine this!) it is teachers and students who are the true innovators, fashioning the most worthy innovations and that the so-called purveyors of policy innovations, driven by the bottom line and the aggregation model of doing business emerge as the laggards. In either case, we are knocking on the door of sublime truths regarding innovation and innovativeness, and behind that door is something that transcends the stable, structuralist categories.
- Several years ago I acted upon the misfortunate assumption that I could enjoy a few ears of corn from a farm adjacent to my house. This was not the sort of corn I was accustomed to finding in the supermarket; it was at least 25% bigger and the kernels somewhat gnarly in appearance. In spite of heaping condiments like butter and salt on this monstrosity, I can assure you this strange new ‘Frankencorn’ was not fit for consumption- by animal or human. Of course there is something both empirically and metaphorically significant to take from this experience, which returns us to the modern origins of research in the diffusion of innovations, to that original hybrid seed corn designed to maximize crop yields.
- The velocity and variety of edible innovations, much like the educational innovations of our time, have yielded mutant, products of questionable worth borne of a business model that is stingy on the development side, favoring aggregation over differentiation; respectively, edible and educational innovations, respectively, have been rendered literally and figuratively indigestible.
- The DIEM has given way to a DEAM (Diffusion of Educational Adaptations Model)(Figure 5), features the permeability afforded by the principle of adaptation, now freed of the imminent linear path of the classic innovation diffusion model. The DEAM has made some replacements for the three core categories of variables in the classic DiM model. Rather than antecedent variables, the focus is on interlocking, emergent systems that, in alignment to CAS and Activity Theory, subordinate to one another and are constantly in flux. Rather than wasting time with the dubious pursuit of pinpointing adoption in the diffusion process, the focus is on the innovation development and diffusion process, which optimally should be permeable to research on the stakeholder systems and feedback from users of new pedagogies and technologies before they are disseminated. Consequently, ‘consequences’ represent not the end of the line, but rather components of a three-way iterative process that recognizes 1) that the use of educational adaptations constitutes the dynamic nature of educational systems and 2) the ongoing re-invention of the adaptation informs the emergence of said adaptation. Like the interlocking trefoil depicted in Huberman’s Linkage Model (1983), movement between the components of the adaptation process circles in both directions; however, if we really pay attention to the message from CAS, the model may be expanded into three-dimensions as the various components influence one another’s growth: rather than a cycle, we may conceive this as ‘spiral-like’ and constituted by a sort of living ecosystem in emergent, interlocking phase states. There are many more implications of this new way of portraying the complexities of educational change than could possibly addressed here. Where it goes from here is up to you.