E-learning for adult literacy, language and numeracy: a case study of a polytechnic

Appendix B: Models of Innovation

The focus of our study was identifying characteristics that influence the success of two innovations presently changing pedagogical practice in adult education. The first is the application, through use of information and communication technologies (ICT), of e-learning. The second is embedding, within that learning, content designed to enhance the language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) skills of adults. Both innovations can be viewed as practices that give adults with low levels of literacy and/or numeracy the opportunity to improve their chances of success in employment and society.

The study, set in a tertiary education institution, was underpinned by a perspective which recognises that e-learning innovations within educational settings take time to bed in and that this process is influenced by the nature of the institution. The institution, in turn, is influenced by the success of the innovation. In other words, innovation and institution co-evolve (Andrews and Haythornthwaite, 2007; Davis, 2010).

We selected, as a means of analysing our data, three models of change brought about by ICT-based innovation in education. During analysis, we found that these models had strong applicability to the processes involved in embedding LLN within e-learning.

In the following section, we briefly describe and explain the elements of each model.

B.1. Attributes of Innovation Model

Rogers’ (2003) seminal research into the diffusion of innovations within an organisation concluded that innovations have attributes that influence the speed of their adoption and/or rejection in particular contexts as follows: “relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability” (p. 223).  

Ferster (2006) provided verification of these attributes after conducting an extensive literature review and garnering opinion from experts. He compiled from this work an extensive list of factors that he then tested (using neural network analysis) in relation to six ICT-related innovations. His systematic analysis confirmed that Rogers (2003) had selected those attributes of innovations most likely to predict the success of an innovation; the predictive accuracy of each attribute was above 90 percent.
 We recommend that developers of ICT for education maximise these characteristics, but that they also interpret their applicability in relation to the other two models presented here and the findings of our study.

B.2. Learning Trajectory Model

This model articulates the stages by which individuals adopt or reject an innovation or elements of it. The researchers in the seminal longitudinal study of the innovative Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) identified five stages of “instructional evolution” that teachers move through when using ICT as a teaching and learning tool in well-resourced classrooms and receiving commensurate ongoing professional development (Sandholtz, Ringstaff and Dwyer, 1997). The stages are entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention. Students of innovative ACOT tutors demonstrated high levels of skill with ICT and ability to learn on their own, to problem-solve, and to work more collaboratively with their classmates. 

Hall and Hord’s (1987) Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) of innovation emphasises that individuals (in the case of the 1987 study, teachers) are more likely to adopt an innovation if they think it addresses their personal concerns.

Sherry, Billig, Tavlin and Gibson (2000) enhanced the work of the above researchers when they published a model setting out the stages they consider teachers and tutors move through when working with an ICT-based innovation. The stages are teacher as learner, teacher as adopter, teacher as co-adopter, teacher as re-affirmer or rejecter, and teacher as leader (Sherry and Gibson, 2002). The last two stages (the last in particular) extend adoption beyond the individual to the group because a tutor who has become “teacher as leader” advocates for ICT and supports others who decide to integrate the innovation into their own practice. Because, from an ecological perspective, the tutor as leader has co-evolved with ICT, he or she is able to provide informed, practical support for other tutors taking on board ICT innovations. Such support has a cascading effect throughout the organisation and thereby hastens evolution of the innovation.

The above literature suggests that a tutor in the leader stage will be a person previously positioned in the innovator and early adopter categories. Rogers (2003) uses five categories of innovativeness to group people in a social system: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Because, according to Rogers, adoption of an innovation in any one system follows an S curve when plotted over time, the categories with the lowest proportions of people are innovators and laggards. Only a few tutors, therefore, are likely to reach Sherry et al.’s (2000) leader stage.

B.3. Organisational Maturity Model

The ongoing maturational process that occurs in an organisation as it implements and integrates ICT into its teaching and administrative structures is linked to the fact that these digital technologies are not passive but dynamic innovations: organisations that adopt one or more e-learning-related innovations tend to experience further changes stimulated by previous adoptions of ICT. For example, once e-learning becomes an integral part of the approach taken by several tutors to teaching and learning, it typically stimulates further collaborative ICT-based activities between tutors and departments.

Rogers’ (2003) terminology for the five stages of organisational change in this respect is agenda-setting, matching, redefining/restructuring, clarifying, and routinising. The last two stages are rarely static because the introduction of each new innovation disrupts the clarifying and routinising processes.

Golden, McCrone, Walker and Rudd (2006) use the term “e-maturity” to denote the development and embedding of the e-learning infrastructure and processes that they observed in further education in the UK. This process is displayed in Table A1 below. Here we can see that the e-maturity sequence starts with localised exploitation when one or more tutors adopt one or more ICT innovations. As the number of tutors and students using ICT increases and activity proliferates, the increasing demand for resources stimulates management to appoint an ICT specialist to manage demand and coordinate internal integration. The range of innovations continues to expand and become further embedded into the organisation through the work of the ICT coordinator and users, who work together to redesign their curricula and educational practices.

The next stage involves redesigning the school’s external digital networks to better accommodate use of ICT, a development that can lead to further embedding of ICT within and across like organisations, such as partner colleges and educational authorities that require information from the organisation on the one hand and provide support to it on the other. Few tertiary organisations reach the innovative stage where they redefine their scope, as has been seen in other sectors, including commerce (eg the banking sector) (Natriello, 2005).

The conflicting pressures exerted by authorities beyond the education and training organisations are one of the factors that tend to make this process of organisational maturation much more chaotic and uncertain. It appears that most of the educational organisations established in the 20th century move from localised exploitation to the second stage of internal integration with an e-learning coordinator and occasionally back again. They also move to the transformative stage to take greater advantage of e-learning in activities, and they establish new routines to do this. However, further maturation of the kind that leads to redesigning educational processes so that they align with provision and facilities offered by external networks appears to be rare (Davis, 2010). 

In general, at this time, the only educational organisations that appear to be truly at the embedded stage of e-maturity are those set up from their inception to use digital technologies to deliver education. Such organisations include virtual universities and virtual schools, and they rely on partnerships between organisations (Natriello, 2005). Two examples of such organisations are the Open University in the UK and the Virtual High School in the USA.