This speech describes ongoing research by the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education in Austin, Texas, on the role of the principal in the process of school improvement. Basic assumptions of the research are that change is a process, not an event, that change begins with individuals, and that it involves personal growth; hence,…

This paper analyzes the collaboration between the University of Texas Research and Development Center for Teacher Education and two school systems. The researchers ranked each school district according to seven Stages of Concern. School System A was inner-oriented, with strong personal and management concerns, while School System B was…

From a general overview presented of the current state of teacher education, proposals for improvement and development are suggested: (1) Teacher education should be the basis for the pulling together of the various mini-disciplines that now exist; (2) Teacher education associations should be merged into one influential organization; (3) Support…

The procedures and coding schema that have been developed by the Research on the Improvement Process (RIP) Program for analyzing the frequency of interventions and for examining their internal characteristics are described. In two in-depth ethnographic studies of implementation efforts, interventions were the focus of data collection and analysis.…

Research shows that principals with strong leadership qualities are a critical factor in effective schools. This paper describes three research based techniques that principals can use when making decisions about how to help teachers develop their skills. The Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) is an empirically based conceptual framework that…

Recent research has shown that, to exercise more effective leadership, principals need to match their behaviors with the appropriate needs and concerns of teachers. Concepts and tools from work done by the Research on Concerns-Based Adoption Project at the Austin campus of the University of Texas were employed to provide principals in the Palm…

This paper reviews objectives, methodology, and data analysis procedures of a study concerning educational innovation. This research, part of the Procedures for Adopting Educational Innovations (PAEI) Program at the University of Texas at Austin, was undertaken to study interventions and their effects. It was considered a first step in determining…

To gain insight into the nature of cooperative and collaborative processes and to contribute information to those considering similar research, an effort was initiated by a school district and a research center to work together in a "collaborative" mode. It was anticipated that the needs of the school district would be addressed, that the goals of…

The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) offers an approach to the study of change by focusing on the needs of individuals and describing their growth over time. Seven Stages of Concern (SoC) have been identified that occur as a teacher adopts an innovation: (1) little concern about or involvement with the innovation; (2) interest in learning more…

The data reported here were gathered in three ethnographic studies in different research settings: a single school, school district, and research center/school district team. These longitudinal studies incorporated the use of ethnography for purposes of collecting data about classroom teachers, principals, staff developers, central office…

This report, one of four studies on roles of participants in high school change, presents data about activities of department heads in 30 schools throughout the nation. The report analyzes background research on the subject as well as popular perceptions, perceptions of teachers and administrators, and perceptions of department heads themselves…

In researching educational change, an analytical tool for analyzing and coding change process interventions has been produced. This paper describes the development of the coding system, the intervention assumptions underlying it, the dimensions and kinds of interventions, with illustrative examples of each, activities for clustering some…

This 3-month pilot study explores the techniques to be used in a year-long research effort for documenting the interventions made by principals as change facilitators in improvement programs. Two frameworks--a taxonomy and an anatomy of intervention--provide a means of describing and analyzing the interventions of the two principals studied. The…

To study the actions that can be used to manage and support change in high schools, two researchers made two-day visits to two high schools in each of nine districts in various geographic areas of the nation, where they interviewed students, staff, and central office personnel. In each district, researchers selected one school they judged to be…

A needs assessment questionnaire submitted to 180 elementary school teachers found that a majority of the teachers felt inadequate and unable to teach science. A majority of the teachers agreed that science should be an integral part of elementary education, that teachers should improve their knowledge of science, and that teachers would teach…