Principals' Decisions on Take-Up: Weighing Perceived Costs and Benefits

• In Event: 68.034 - Encouraging Compliance Without Mandates: The Challenge of Take-Up in a New State-Sponsored Education Initiative

Abstract

Substantial attention has focused on implementation of effective educational initiatives that affect stakeholder decisions to adopt reforms (Datnow, 2000; Datnow & Stringfield, 2000). When scale-up designs allow for principals’ voluntary participation, researchers cite out-of-school factors that affect take-up decisions including access to information, central office encouragement, or community support (Fullan, 2001). Limited literature explores the complex, overlapping in-school factors affecting take-up decisions such as unique structural features, school climate, trust, and power dynamics (e.g., Berends, Bodilly, & Kirby, 2002; Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Datnow, Hubbard, & Mehan, 1998). In this paper we ask: What in-school factors explain variation in principals’ decisions to take-up (or not) the Instructional Partnership Initiative (IPI), a voluntary program rolled out in Fall 2015 by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE).

Fieldwork during the spring of 2015 in a subset of take-up schools included semi-structured interviews with 16 principals. Via telephone, we interviewed 10 principals who declined to participate in IPI. Our sampling frame was stratified by treatment conditions, which were part of the research design; the frame was then purposefully refined to capture school characteristics, including level, region, size, percentage of economically disadvantaged students, and school-wide value-added scores. Interview protocols included questions about principals’ reasons for program adoption, school-level conditions such as culture, teacher collaboration, turnover and general strengths and challenges, which allow us to identify specific drivers of their decision making around take-up. Researchers analyzed interviews using a thematic coding approach (Charmaz, 2014). The framework was guided by a theory of action that hypothesized that program adoption would be influenced by a variety of external supports and within school characteristics. The framework was iteratively revised through multiple rounds of testing and coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Le Compte & Schensul, 1999).

Perceived costs and benefits around program burden (i.e. time), relational trust dynamics, and school culture and climate drove principals’ decisions to adopt IPI. Principals often considered alignment with school culture and programs, and issues of relational trust amongst teachers in their cost/benefit calculations. For example, most principals considered IPI as a potential mechanism to promote collaboration and improvement of teacher practice. Some non-take-up principals, however, worried that teachers were overburdened by too many ongoing, seemingly similar initiatives. For example, one principal said, “my teachers are already working together…why do I need to drop one more thing on them?” When principals weighed the potential of IPI to affect relational dynamics, they also used a cost/benefit frame. For example, some take-up principals hoped IPI could open up conversations around evaluation, shifting the culture away from one of secrecy. Non-take-up principals cited concerns that IPI would overstep privacy boundaries surrounding evaluation, or create hierarchical divisions amongst teachers.

These findings contribute to literature that examines what policymakers must consider to encourage program adoption by clarifying principals’ cost/benefit considerations when weighing new initiatives. Findings suggest that efforts must attend to principals’ perceptions of in-school factors, in addition to the broader external influences.

Authors

• Michael Alan Neel, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College

• Mollie Rubin, Vanderbilt University