Exploring Attitude Change Through Manipulation: Are Teacher Candidates Ready for the Upcoming Educational Change Attempt?

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Perspectives on Educational Change: Cultural Shifts, Generational Expectations, and Professional Collaboration

Abstract

The results of educational change attempts have disappointed all the stakeholders because of high failure rates. Regarding the underlying reasons behind those failures, the organizational change literature points out the ignorance of human attitude in change process. Of the attitudes toward change, Readiness for Organizational Change (RFOC) is identified as one of the preliminary steps of a change process. With respect to the exploration of human attitude toward change, cognitive dissonance theory has been extensively used. Utilizing the assumptions of cognitive dissonance theory, the main purpose of this study is to experimentally investigate how the readiness of novice teachers towards an educational change initiative shows variation depending on the counter-attitudinal information and counter-attitudinal essay writing about the respective educational change.

Authors

• Omer Caliskan, Bozok University

• Gokce Gokalp, Middle East Technical University