Ellsworth's framework organizes educational change models around agent, innovation, adopter, process, environment, and resistance¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 review), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

The digest presents Ellsworth's framework as a way of uniting the major perspectives, or models, of educational change into a 360 degree view of the change process. In it, a change agent communicates an innovation to an intended adopter via a change process that establishes a channel through the change environment, which also contains resistance that can disrupt the process or distort how the innovation appears. The digest uses it to organize the practitioner literature.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• The framework presumes a change agent wishing to communicate an innovation to an intended adopter, with a change process establishing a channel through the change environment

Constraints¶

• The environment contains resistance that can disrupt the change process or distort how the innovation appears to the intended adopter

Target Learners¶

• school change agents such as teachers, principals, administrators, consultants, and community leaders

Target Learning Objectives¶

• planning and managing educational change and innovation implementation

Claims¶

• An innovation foreign to the rest of its system tends to be rejected; lasting change needs a coordinated bundle of innovations. [+W]

Related Theories¶

• Ellsworth's Framework of Educational Change
• Six change-agent roles framework for regional staff development staff

Examples¶

• Guide change efforts with systemic understanding, focusing interventions on one framework component at a time as needed
• Diagnose resistance causes, then modify innovation attributes or their perceptions, using Rogers's influential attributes
• Address environmental deficiencies using Ely's Conditions for Change, such as leadership commitment and professional development

Key Sources¶

• Ellsworth, James B. (2000). A Survey of Educational Change Models. ERIC Digest. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED444597