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11
Zhao Xiaojing
УДК 681.3
DEVELOP A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP, AND INNOVATION DISSEMINATES
1. Introduction.
This paper will relate innovation theory to the on-going EFL innovations in East China Jiaotong University (ECJTU1) in an attempt to illustrate the key factors of management expertise that the writer perceived as contributing to the success of change in this project. Being one of the teaching staff as well as a board member of the project in ECJTU, the writer of this paper was personally involved in the promotion and the design of the project during the preliminary stage, thus has a full understanding of the context of this particular project.
In the following second section, this paper will explore the nature of change process illustrated in the diffusion literature and identify the key factors that has been known to be influential to diffusion of innovation; the third section will give an introduction to the context and the framework of the project being conducted in ECJTU; Section Four will shed light on the management expertise perceived as contributing to the success of this on-going innovation project; some practical strategy will be put forward in the final section.
2. My perception on the nature of change.
A review of the diffusion literature indicates a
consensus that change is not a professional concept, but a natural part of the human condition. People are always reluctant to change in that, firstly, the impact of change in anyone's life is immensely complex. Change in one area of life is likely to have unexpected effect on other parts. As a result, people's reaction may often have little or nothing to do with the actual change itself, but may be conditioned by apparently unrelated factors. Secondly, the features of change are always disruptive, which poses a potential threat to people's established life format. (Hutchinson 1992:4)
My perception of people's inactive attitude towards change is that of psychological needs. People have a tendency to cling to what they have already been accustomed to. Any form of change is likely to be perceived as a challenge to those they are familiar with. In other word, people are afraid that change will break the balance of their life. If such balance broken, they feel that they lose control of their own life, that is, they feel a lack of ownership.
However, another side of the story is that change is manageable. A carefully-designed innovation may avoid depriving people of their needs for ownership. If one innovation is tailored to help people to build up a sense of ownership, chances are people will make great efforts to fulfil it, thus the innovation disseminates.
The essence of management, therefore, is to build up a sense of ownership among its adopters, or rather, a feeling of control of their own life. The rest of this section will give brief analysis to some diffusion theory which I believe to some extent is associated with the understanding of meeting people's psychological needs for a control over life.
Rogers (1995)'s research on the attributes of innovation, which is based on a cross-disciplinary analysis of 1,500 innovation studies and is most influential in the diffusion theory, list five attributes of innovations. They are (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) complexity, (4) triability, and (5) observability. I consider all these five attributes as related to the fulfilment of human psychological needs:
The first element relative advantage takes into consideration the basic human needs of well-being. It is natural that people will be more willing to adopt things that have potential benefits to them, either in the form of economic profitability, or social prestige, or other way. Since different people may have different perceptions
East China Jiaotong University, the university where the writer is teaching in.
2 Some researchers distinguish the term "change" from "innovation", claiming that the former occurs spontaneously, while the latter involves deliberate alteration (White 1988). This paper, however, decides to use them as synonyms.
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on the same things, it is up to the change agents to identify the potential benefits for those adopters. Compatibility refers to the human needs of being remain secure and stable. Human tend to accept something that is more familiar. They can only add a limited amount of novelty to their established life format. Any innovation that is regarded as incompatible to the existed values or ideas will be perceived as a threat to their normal life will be refused, either overtly or covertly. All the other three features, including complexity, triability and observability, have something in common. Among them, complexity is negatively related to the rate of diffusion, while triability and observability are positively related to the rate of diffusion. Whatever parts they play, they refer to the same aspect of innovation - people's perception of feasibility and operability. If an innovation is perceived as more comprehensible and operable, people will be more confident in adopting it. The reason may be that once people successfully finish something, chances are that they will have a kind of self-fulfilment, an important feeling that certainly meets their psychological needs. Any innovation that is perceived as too complicated for them to control may add uncertainty to their existing life and certainly pose threats to their sense of ownership.
Another framework worthy of mentioning here is that of Markee (1997)'s theoretical framework for understanding innovation, including who adopt what, where, when, why and how? It points out the different roles played by different participants (who); it divides adoption into four evaluative phases of decision-making -people need firstly knowledge about the innovation, then the value of the innovation should be clarified, after which preliminary and final decisions will be made(adopt); it provides a definition of curricular innovation and point out that basically, innovation is a managed process (what); instead of positing culture as a separate variable, it suggests a variety of interrelated culture (where); it presents a diffusion curve concerning a quantitative definition of diffusion time, indicating that there are five different adopters - innovators, early majority, late majority and laggards (when); it gives an explanation to reasons why the adoption behaviours vary (why); it gives respective evaluation to five different approaches to effecting change, including the strategies of change, and the leadership style that are typically associated with them (how).
My perception of Markee's framework is as follows: the first task a change agency must bear in mind is to recognize people - the participators of the innovation (who). The next step is to analyze their social status and the roles they will play in the innovation. The main task for an innovator at this stage, is to remind people the potential benefits the innovation will bring to them. If people perceive the change as beneficial to them, they will be more willing to adopt change. I relate this point to Rogers' relative advantage. The strategy is to trying to understand people and satisfy their needs. With this in mind, the aspect of what, where and when become more perceivable. People's perceptions toward change are different, so is their reaction to change. Some people may adopt change earlier than other people. Besides other possibilities, the different social-cultural context (where) may account for such difference. As is pointed out above, it is the change agents' responsibility to identify the relevant situation, and add meaning to the following change in order to effect innovation.
Markee (1997)'s analysis on the five diffusion models is more revealing: The Social Interaction Model attaches much weight to communication. Once the knowledge of innovation spreads, either from person to person or from community to community, diffusion will happen.
Center-periphery Model makes use of a "power-coercive" strategy of change. Instead of creating initiation from people, change agents adopt a "mechanistic" leadership style and tend to force rapid change with sort of position power. The doomed failure of such approach lies in the fact the lack of ownership may induce covert resistance which prevents the diffusion from long-lasting and self-sustaining.
Research, Development, and Diffusion (RD&D) Model has acquired much prestige in educational and social science. Based on the change agents' status as experts, this model relies on an "open-mechanistic" leadership style. The disadvantage of this approach is that it mistakenly assumes that rational argument to be sufficient to persuade potential users to accept change and ignore the more important factors such as social-cultural constrains, systematic and personal factors and attributes of innovation etc.
Problem-solving Model considers change as bottom-up rather than top-down phenomenon. In this approach, the ownership enables teachers to act as change agents, in other words, teachers are encourage to use their own experience to critique
what happens in their classrooms and diagnose how they want to solve it. Such change, derived from the change in ideology, will be long-lasting and sustainable.
The Linkage Model advocates "situational leadership", which means change agents should take the specific context into consideration and adopt a proper approach to promote change.
All these analyses point to the same direction that an ideal model is one that tries to turn its adopters into change agents. In this way, a sense of ownership is build up. The more they feel a sort of ownership, the more teachers' initiation will be aroused and the more effective the diffusion will be. Once again this analysis confirms the importance of meeting people's psychological needs, that is, to build up a feeling of ownership or to promote a control over their own lives.
In the next section, I would like to give a detailed introduction to the background of the on-going EFL innovation in ECJTU with a purpose to identify the diffusion model of it.
3. The diffusion model of the EFL innovations in ECJTU.
Nowadays in China, there is a widely-accepted dissatisfaction that the EFL courses and teaching methodology is out of date. Looking back on the educational history, Chinese government attached much importance to the improvement of people's foreign language proficiency. Large sums of money were invested in training EFL teachers and establishing technological equipments in educational units of all levels. English was required as a compulsory course all through the educational years, that is, English was a credit course from the third year of primary school to post-graduate education. However, all these efforts and investment didn't achieved expected results. The outcome of teaching English as a foreign language, as is pointed out by educators and learners, is deviated from the objectives of FLT educational system! A case in point is that a typical Chinese student, after having received formal instruction of English for more than ten years, simply failed to communicate with English native speakers3. As a result, there are strong pressures from society calling for EFL reform, and demands for
something significant to happen. It was high time for curricular innovation.
Consequently, Chinese Education Department (CED) issued a document with regard to a nation-wide collegiate EFL curricular innovation. Four prestigious Chinese EFL publishing houses were entrusted with the promotion of this large-scale reform. Teaching materials were developed to promote a heuristic style of learning as well as student involvement; electronic versions were produced to encourage the use of multimedia equipments in the classroom teaching, i.e., the use of computers, microphones and slides projectors; web-based EFL learning platforms were presented to facilitate students' autonomic study. In the beginning of 2004, 108 colleges and universities around the country4 voluntarily designed the innovation projects of their own and were finally accepted by the Educational Department as the pioneer participators of this reform.
The qualification of ECJTU as one of the pioneers, was actually approved by Higher Education Press (HEP), one of the four publishing houses mentioned above. Consequently, ECJTU automatically became a customer of HEP and would make use of the teaching material and web-based learning platform developed by HEP.
Here I place the innovation model in ECJTU into RD&D Model. The characteristic of this model is that it involves a division of labour, with a clear separation of roles and functions, among which the role of the consumer's role is seen to be a passive one5 (White 1988). One thing I must point out here is that the diffusion model here reminds me the diffusion of notional-functional syllabus in the late1970s and 1980s. In diffusing notional-functional syllabus, tasks were sequentially carried out by different groups of specialists. (Markee, N. 1997). Likewise, in defusing this computer-based language teaching curricular, expert material writers were committed to compile new textbooks; computer specialists took the responsibility of developing complementary software and web-based autonomic learning platform; finally the task of implementing these new materials was handed over to teachers.
3 They may have a good command of English grammar and structure.
4 This amount accounts for approximately one fourth of the universities in China.
5 This point will be referred to again in the following section.
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Another aspect indicates that this diffusion model resembles that of notional-functional syllabus is that they both rely on eminent publishing houses to disseminate the innovation. The enormous commercial interests, the over-whelming needs for curricular innovation, plus the established successful model to follow, seem to guarantee that this time Chinese EFL curricular innovations will be effective and fruitful. But will they?
Being a teacher in ECJTU, a university located in a backward province, I am not informed enough to provide detailed evaluation on the nation-wide innovation. Instead, I will devote the following of this paper to the evaluation of the EFL innovation project being conducted in ECJTU with the purpose of presenting it as a miniature of the whole programme.
4. My perception of management expertise contributing to the success of ECJTU project.
The prestige of the on-going innovation project in ECJTU is obvious: the textbooks and the complementary teaching facilities are developed by specialists. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that these products are theory-based and of high quality; considering that there is a general demand both from teachers and from students on an EFL reform, my assumption is that they are all ideologically prepared for a kind of change; the support from the Chinese Educational Department indicates that the innovation is authorized and irresistible.
Here I place the innovation model in ECJTU into RD&D Model. Despite the advantages listed above, there are some disadvantages of this model which are open to criticism. Dissatisfaction comes from the fact that this model, like center-periphery one, relies on top-down approach and simply impose the change on people. Such "user-proof"6 approach, as is suggested by Fullan (2002), typically result in feeling of anxiety, discomfort and struggle (Fullan 2001:30). Will such lack of ownership block the diffusion?
In ECJTU, diffusion seems to spread without any obstacle. Materials are purchased and put into use in the classroom; computer-assisted teaching takes place of the traditional instruction with the application of chalks and blackboard; classroom instruction hours are cut down and students are encouraged to carry out web-based
6Markee 1997:66.
autonomic study after class. But does all this indicate that the innovation disseminates well? I suspect that this is not necessarily the case. The problem is that the lack of ownership will result the lack of initiatives.
I would like to refer to Doukas (1998 )'s framework on the levels of change in education in order to have a deep insight into this case. Doukas (1998)'s framework points out that pedagogical innovation involve change at three levels: (a) change or revision of teaching materials, syllabi or curricular; (b) changes in teacher behaviour, e. g. new techniques, approaches or activities; (c) changes in beliefs and principles underlying new materials and approaches. He insists that change must occur at all three levels to make a great difference in the classroom and on students, or else the chances of achieving the expected outcomes of the innovation will become drastically reduced.
Admittedly, the RD&D model works well on level (a) and level (b). Changes do happen on revision of teaching materials, curricular and teacher behaviour, it seems that the lack of ownership will not affect the diffusion of innovation. But beside all these tangible things, what about the most important level, the change of teachers' beliefs and principles underlying them? Do teachers' beliefs and values change as well? Considering the top-down nature of RD&D model, I may draw a conclusion that without further efforts made by the change agents, chances are Level (c) change of innovation will never happen in ECJTU. Without the Level (c) change, the innovation will remain superficial and will never become a long-lasting and sustainable one.
Referring back to Markee (1997)'s framework reminds us that teachers are key players in educational innovation whose role is by no means ignorable. Sarason (1990, cited in Doukas 1998) is right when he points out that there is a naive assumption on the part of curriculum developers and policy makers that a change in policy automatically leads to a change in practice.
Demand from teachers on further educational reform doesn't mean that an innovation with good purpose will diffuse automatically. Teachers' expressed attitudes towards change may not confirm to their actual action. In fact, according to Kennedy C. and
Kennedy J. (1996), teachers' expressed attitudes towards change may be contradictory to their actual behaviour! Although teachers have positive attitudes toward change, there are various factors that deter them from actually adopting it.
As far as teachers in ECJTU is concerned, they must attitudinally in favour of the EFL innovation for the following reasons: they understand that the existed methodology and curricular are out of date, as is indicated above; they are looking forward to something inspiring in the classroom, i. e. new teaching style; the introduction of computer-aided teaching and the decrease of instruction working hours per class will certainly help to liberate them from too much workload about which they always complain. However, the positive attitude does not necessarily reflect their action. When the innovation is put into practice, it may suffer various practical problems: those who are familiar with the old textbooks may complain that they have to spend much more time preparing the new material; some may think they lack the skills and knowledge to operate the new equipment; some may doubt the effectiveness of web-based autonomic study; some may even think that the introduction of computer-aided teaching is a threat to the teaching position they hold! There will be a long list of dissatisfactions they express, in spite that the hidden cause of all these complaints maybe that change is destroying their established life style and threatening their control over life!
Without proper management, too many obstacles will most probably form a destructive power to override any positive attitude, a phenomenon that has been pointed out by Kennedy C. and Kennedy J. (1996). Likewise, Doukas (1998) point out two possibilities of teacher's behaviour, one is that teachers exhibit a token adoption whereby they profess to have changed their practice but in reality carry on as before. The other is that teachers wholly or partly resist or reject or transform the innovation.
Once again, I must point out that change is manageable. As a change agent, one must be aware and sensitive to these factors and prevent the duplication of such problems. With the particular case in ECJTU, to effect change, one
must promote a kind of ownership among the teachers. But how?
5. Strategies to promote ownership in ECJTU.
The features of RD&D Model plus the centralized educational system seem to indicate that the role teachers in ECJTU play have to be a passive one. It is true that through this approach, most teachers are not entitled to make the critical decision on whether to adopt the innovation or not. Some chief teachers, including the head of the English Department and the other four board members of the project made the decision of adopting the innovation and help to design the process of change. They are quite confident of what is going to happen. There may be no ownership problem for them. But for the rest of the teachers, as is pointed out, change is imposed on them and they have no access to the detail of the innovation. Such painful unclarity7 will result in a feeling of insecurity, a loss of ownership and worse still, a kind of covert resistance to change.
In order to ensure a long-lasting and self-sustainable innovation, the change manger, in this case, the head of department and the board members have to make every effort to build up a sense of ownership. The first strategy I may suggest here is concerned with teacher training. Teachers should be entitled to a full understanding of the objectives and principles of the innovation and the means of its implementation (Doukas 1998). In doing so, teachers will feel a control over what is going on. This is also a way to reduce people's perceived complexity of the innovation. In the on-going innovation project in ECJTU, teacher training must also include the operation of the equipment. Only when teachers become skilled and confident in using a new idea and new technology will a sense of ownership develops (Huberman and Miles' 1984, cited by Doukas 1998).
Another strategy deals with Rogers' relative advantage. The change managers in ECJTU must reinforce the idea that the adoption of the innovations will bring about with them a sense of well-being. One point is that people may have different conception of the state of well-being. In ECJTU, some of the staff attach more weight to financial gain; some may be afraid of the increased workload; some may need a kind of
This term is pointed out by Fullan and Steigelbauer (1991, cited by Doukas 1998). Another term is false clarity, which is also a source of non-change.
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"psychological rewards" of group membership (Blackler and Shimmin 1984, cited by Hutchinson 1998). In fact, innovation in ECJTU has been designed to meet the needs of various people: workload has been reduced but the salary remain the same8; the help of computer has helped to reduce teachers' workload and enable them to spend time on research; most of the chief teachers in the department are in favour of the innovation and are personally involved. To participate in the innovation certainly results in a kind of group membership. It is up to the change mangers to identify the particular needs of particular people and reinforce such ideas of relative advantage to them. If an innovation is believed to contribute to the individual benefits of the teachers, it will become an innovation of their own. Such beliefs9 will certainly be transferred into a power strong enough to push the innovation into a continuous one.
The final strategy, maybe the most important one, is to allow people to make decisions during the process of its implementation. One possibility is that teachers will assemble regularly to discuss about the problems they encounter during the process in an attempt to find some solutions. As is pointed out by white (1988), it is important to recognize the widely observed tendency of innovation to be modified during the dissemination and adoption process. This strategy encourages the teachers to participate in the problem-solving process, which I believe is the best way to promote a sense of ownership.
6. Conclusion.
So far, this paper has shed light on why and how people are unwilling to change. Some diffusion theory and innovation framework has
been illustrated to explain my perception on innovation management. One aspect of people's psychological need is regarded as the most important factor to promote change, that is, to develop a sense of ownership among adopters. I analyse the diffusion model of ECJTU and put forward some management strategies to build up the sense of ownership and to effect change in this particular project. Finally, I would like to conclude this paper with my conviction that with the careful design and a skilful management, the on-going EFL innovation in ECJTU will develop into a meaningful and sustainable one.
REFERENCES
1. Doukas, K. K. Managing evaluation and innovation in language teaching: building bridges. London: Longman, 1998.
2. Fullan, M. The new meaning of educational change (3rd Edition). London: Routledge Falmer. 2001.
3. Hutchinson, T. The management of change. The Teacher Trainer, 23/1,1992.
4. Kennedy, C. Evaluation of the management of change in ELT Projects. Applied Linguistics, 9/4,1988, 329-342.
5. Kennedy C. and J. Kennedy, Teacher attitude and change implementation. Mimeo: CELS, University of Birmingham, 1996.
6. Markee, N. Managing curricular innovation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1997.
7. Rogers, E. M. Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press,1995.
8. White, R. The ELT curriculum: design, innovation and management. Blackwell, 1988.
8 In ECJTU, part of teachers' salary is awarded by calculating the teaching hour and the size of the class they teach. Those who teach a larger class will earn more than those who teach smaller ones. During this innovation, the size of class decreased, but teacher's salary remains unreduced. This is designed to be a way to encourage change.
9 However, I must remind here teachers' belief is not measured by words but by action. Observation of the classroom is an advisable way to measure teacher attitude, as is revealed by Kennedy C. and Kennedy J. (1996).
