Seven Stages of Concern About an Innovation¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · 5 claims (5 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The Stages of Concern (SoC) concept, generalized from Fuller's work on teacher concerns and part of the Concerns-Based Adoption Model, describes seven hypothesized stages through which individuals' concerns about an innovation move: awareness, informational, personal, management, consequence, collaboration, and refocusing. The article defines each stage, e.g., management means "Attention is 'focused on the processes and tasks of using the innovation and the best use of information and resources." The stages range through Fuller's Self, Task, and Impact orientations and are measured by the SoC Questionnaire.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• The concept assumes individuals involved in change exhibit concerns that can be located on the seven stages at a given point in time, with one or two stages generally predominating.

Constraints¶

Target Learners¶

• elementary school teachers implementing a new curriculum

Target Learning Objectives¶

• understanding and supporting teachers' concerns during curriculum implementation

Claims¶

• Individual teachers' concern profiles vary widely and can diverge from group trends during implementation [+W]
• Management concerns never predominated for any group in the SCIS implementation, contrary to other innovation studies [+W]
• Anticipating a workshop versus having prior workshop experience differentiates teachers' concern profiles [+W]
• Teachers' concerns follow a developmental trend from lower to higher stages during curriculum implementation [+W]
• The two-week SCIS workshop shifted participants' concerns from lower-stage nonuser patterns toward higher-stage user patterns [+W]

Related Theories¶

• Stages of Concern About the Innovation: a seven-stage developmental taxonomy of individuals' concerns
• Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) stages of concern
• Concerns-Based Adoption Model: change is a process with diagnosable dimensions
• Fuller Teacher Concerns Theory: three developmental stages of teacher concerns
• Levels of Use of the Innovation: an eight-level behavioral framework for individual innovation implementation
• Revised emergent-growth model of technology adoption integrating voluntary activities with maintained early concerns

Examples¶

• Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ)
• Use individual and group Stages of Concern data to tailor inservice and training decisions
• Use three methods to assess concerns: questionnaire, open-ended statements, and informal conversation

Key Sources¶

• Loucks, Susan F. (1977). Concerns Expressed by Elementary School Teachers about the Implementation of the SCIS Curriculum. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED250163