South Dakota Public School Superintendents’ Perceptions of Innovation Region 3 Area Superintendent Meeting Timothy M Mitchell

“Building Capacity Focused on Results” Theme “Building Capacity Focused on Results” Michael Fullan-2008 AASA NCE

Purpose of Study To examine public school district superintendents’ perceptions of individual innovativeness, organizational innovativeness, and innovation behaviors. Specific characteristics of public school district superintendents and public school districts were analyzed by the dimensions of individual innovativeness, organizational innovativeness, and innovation behaviors. The three dimensions of individual innovativeness, organizational innovativeness, and innovation behaviors were compared to determine the likelihood of the adoption of an innovation in a public school district.

Method The study utilized a researcher developed survey instrument that was based on the work of McCroskey (2006) Communication Research Measures: Individual Innovativeness and Organizational Innovativeness. Demographic information about the public school district superintendents’ was obtained through the survey. Demographic information about the public school districts was obtained from the South Dakota Department of Education.

Method All public school district superintendents serving public school districts in South Dakota during the 2007-2008 school year were the population for this study. The total number of public school district superintendents participating in this study was 165. The Response Rate was 83% (137).

Superintendent Characteristics Age Gender Years experience Educational level Professional development practices Professional organizational membership

School District Characteristics Enrollment Financial resources Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Status Professional development capacity Average years of teaching experience Percentage of teaching staff with advanced degrees

Research Base The process of adopting new innovations has been studied for over 30 years, and one of the most popular adoption models is described by Dr, Everett Rogers in his book Diffusion of Innovations (2003). He first published the theory of diffusion of innovation in 1962. Since that time, he has updated and changed his theory and has published the most recent edition (5th Edition) in 2003. Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system.

Adopter Categories The individuals in a social system do not all adopt an innovation at the same time. It has become useful and efficient to describe each individual adopter in a system in terms of his or her time of adoption. Adopter categories are used as the classification systems for members of a system on the basis of their innovativeness. Each adopter category consists of individuals with a similar degree of innovativeness.

Adopter Categories The first category of adopters is innovators (2.5%). These are the risk-takers and pioneers who lead the way. The second group is known as the early adopters (13.5%). They climb on board the train early and help spread the word about the innovation to others. The third and fourth groups are the early majority and late majority. Each constitutes 34% of the potential adopting population. The innovators and early adopters convince the early majority. The late majority waits to make sure that adoption is in their best interests. The final group is the laggards (16%). These are the individuals who are highly skeptical and resist adopting until absolutely necessary. In many cases, they never adopt the innovation.

Findings None of the public school district superintendents’ characteristics are able to significantly predict individual innovativeness, however, years of experience, professional development practices, and professional organization membership have the greatest predictive ability.

Findings A relationship exists between Individual Innovativeness Categories of innovator, early adopter, early majority, late majority, and laggard and the public school district superintendent characteristic of gender. A relationship exists between Organizational Innovativeness Categories of innovator, early adopter, early majority, late majority, and laggard and the public school district superintendent characteristics of educational degree level and professional organization membership.

Findings A strong positive relationship was identified between individual innovativeness and organizational innovativeness.

Conclusions Most South Dakota public school district superintendents perceive themselves as highly innovative on an individual innovativeness survey.

Conclusions The largest adopter category of South Dakota public school district superintendents is Early Majority and according to Rogers they tend to have a high degree of opinion leadership, are respected by their peers, and they are the individual to check with before adopting a new idea.

Conclusions The public school district superintendent characteristics chosen do not significantly predict whether a public school district superintendent is innovative. Some of the public school district superintendents’ characteristics did have greater predictive ability than others.

Conclusions Public school district superintendents that perceive themselves as innovative are found in public school districts with larger enrollments, greater financial resources, greater professional development capacity, and teachers with more years of teaching experience. They are more likely to be female.

Conclusions There exists a strong positive relationship between innovative public school district superintendents and innovative public school districts. Respondents in this study perceive that leadership capacity is needed for a public school district to be innovative and organizational capacity is needed for a public school district superintendent to be innovative.

Recommendations for Practice Leadership is critical in innovative public school districts and that resources are needed by public school districts to develop leadership and organizational capacity to sustain innovation. Policy makers should note that investment in building capacity in leadership and organizational capacity is a critical factor in fostering innovation. Public school district superintendents need to consider the importance of building their own leadership capacity through professional development, securing advanced degrees, and establishing intra-personal networks through memberships in professional organizations.

Recommendations for Practice Funding is critical in innovative public school districts and resources are needed to sustain the teaching staff, to provide professional development activities to build leadership capacity, and to provide professional development activities to build organizational capacity.

Recommendations for Practice Public school district superintendents’ with higher educational degrees and a greater involvement in professional organizations perceive themselves as more innovative. Public school districts, policy makers, and federal agencies need to invest in life long learning for public school district superintendents and provide the resources to join professional organizations.

Recommendations for Follow-Up “The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive and Thrive”-M. Fullan Love your employees Connect peers with purpose Capacity building prevails Learning is the work Transparency rules Systems learn

Thank you! Questions and comments

tim.mitchell@k12.sd.us http://tm026.k12.sd.us Contact Information tim.mitchell@k12.sd.us http://tm026.k12.sd.us