Professional Development and the Adoption and Implementation of New Innovations: Do Teacher Concerns Matter? 6(5)

Although the trend today is leaning toward including teachers in the decision-making process, policymakers have historically tended to design professional development activities based on skills and knowledge they assume teachers need, rather than allowing teachers to identify their needs and concerns when designing new programs. Research suggests that successful implementation of new programs depends on teachers’ participation and comfort level. Concerns theory reports that at the early stages of an innovation, teachers’ concerns tend to be more personal. As personal concerns are resolved, teachers tend to be more concerned about the application (task and the impact of the innovation). This study examines the importance of taking teacher concerns into consideration when planning professional development activities for new innovations using a sample of seventy-nine teachers from two rural school districts in Ohio who elected to participate in a two-week training session on SchoolNet computers and networking applications. The Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ), teachers’ weekly reflections, and journal responses provided the data. Results suggest that as teachers became more familiar with SchoolNet technology, there was a shift in concerns from personal to task and impact concerns.