Measuring innovation in education with a special focus on the impact of organisational characteristics

Gábor Halász

doi:10.1556/063.2021.00032

Abstract

AbstractInnovations created by teachers, teacher communities and schools in their daily practice play a key role in improving the quality and effectiveness of education. As protocols, central regulations, ready-made teaching materials do not provide solutions to all problems emerging in daily practice the invention of new, original solutions are necessary to respond the challenges teachers and schools encounter in their everyday work. Similarly to other knowledge intensive professions creativity and innovativeness are necessary skills for teachers and teacher communities to work effectively. In many countries schools are encouraged to support innovative work behaviour and they are expected to manage effectively change and innovation processes. The increasing importance of innovations and innovation processes in education raises the question of how to measure innovation in this sector and how decision makers can use innovation data. This article presents some of the outcomes of an education sector innovation survey conducted in Hungary in 2018. It demonstrates the possibility to design data collection instruments that allow capturing school/department level innovation processes. The article focuses on one specific problem area: the relationship between organisational characteristics and innovation activity/behaviour.

Highlights

Central regulations, ready-made teaching materials do not provide solutions to all problems emerging in daily practice the invention of new, original solutions are necessary to respond the challenges teachers and schools encounter in their everyday work
Innovations created by teachers, teacher communities and schools in their daily practice play a crucial role in improving the quality and effectiveness of education systems
As noted in a recent publication on educational innovation ‘governmental reforms and top– down initiatives are often monitored by research institutions, but grassroots innovations in education escaped the attention of researchers so far’ (Smirnov, 2017)

Summary

Introduction

Innovations created by teachers, teacher communities and schools in their daily practice play a crucial role in improving the quality and effectiveness of education systems. To other knowledge intensive professions creativity and innovativeness are necessary skills for teachers and teacher communities to work effectively. In many education systems schools are increasingly expected to support innovative work behaviour and to manage effectively change and innovation processes. Grassroots, bottom-up or school level innovations have, long been attracting the attention of those interested in organisational or ‘micro-political’ processes in education (Ball, 2012). If the appropriate organisational and leadership conditions are given these kinds of innovations, initiated by teachers and schools at grassroots level, can produce significant improvements in education systems: often more significant than some macro level interventions described by Fullan as ‘wrong drivers’ (Fullan, 2011). As demonstrated by a number of change case studies ‘the profession has the capacity and the will to lead change’ even in less developed education systems with no well-established tradition of locally initiated changes (Shirley, 2016; 284)

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Conclusion