Using Network Intervention to Facilitate Schoolwide Change for Policy Implementation

• In Event: Toward Sustainable Innovations in Education

Abstract

Objectives
In responding to the implementation of national curriculum reform policy, this study examines the degree to which the design of network interventions supports or constrains educators’ efforts towards policy implementation. Given recent developments in research literature that defines sense-making of policy as the process in which individual educators derive meaning from their social context, and inform/guide their beliefs and actions (Coburn & Stein, 2010; Siciliano et al., 2017; Spillane et al., 2006), this study examines: What is the sense-making process of policy implementation as they occur under different network interventions conditions over time at two elementary schools?

Framework
This study is informed by the concept of sense-making of policy implementation from a social and cognitive perspective. Given that educators’ social networks are largely shaped by their views/beliefs about reform initiatives which are influenced by their social context (Liou & Daly, 2020; Spillane et al., 2018), with a particular intervention strategy promoting the awareness of personal and organizational networks, the study proposes a positive change in reform-related networks over time.

Data
The sample included two K-6 public schools each with 33-35 certificated employees (teachers and administrators) from two urban fringe school districts in Taipei, who completed an annual survey during March and April in 2020 and 2021. The survey asked respondents to whom they turn for advice/information related to curriculum reform implementation and their efficacy beliefs about the reform policy. The beliefs scale was validated in previous research (Liou et al., 2016). One of the schools received network intervention treatment in between the study period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 educators over time.

Methods
The study employs a case study design (Yin, 2017) with multiple data sources triangulating the phenomenon of policy sense-making. A series of permutation-based t-tests are run to compare sets of structural difference between time points for each site (Borgatti et al., 2018), along with quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) to test the correlations between reform-related network and beliefs. Constant comparative analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 2017) is administered to form categorical themes in supporting the phenomenon.

Results
Several network structural indices significantly increased over time at the treatment school, including density, dyad reciprocity, arc reciprocity, and degree centrality, whereas those network indices stayed the same or dropped over time at the control school. The QAP results indicate homophily effect of beliefs in forming ties around reform implementation at the treatment school, compared to non-significant effect of beliefs in tie formation at the control school. Educators from treatment school reported a positive feature of PLCs that were reorganized in year two. No particular change in professional interaction mechanisms at the control school during the study period.

Significance
The findings add to existing knowledge base around sense-making of policy (Spillane et al., 2006) and network intervention (Aalbers & Dolfsma, 2017; Valente, 2012) and further shed new light on the important role of social networks in shaping collective beliefs around policy implementation. Schools may be advised to attend to the social side of reform for cohesive culture and systems change.

Author

• Yi-Hwa Liou, National Taipei University of Education