Change Theory Overview

Everett Rogers, who presents a concise history of change research in Chapter 2 of the fourth edition of his classic, Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers, 1995), traces formal change research to Gabriel Tarde's 1903 book, The Laws of Imitation.  Tarde, interestingly, was a French judge who is regarded as one of the founders of Social Psychology.  In a noteworthy nod to Systems Theory, Tarde wrote about change in social systems from the perspective of a feedback loop: the criminal justice system.  Similar--but isolated--work by anthropologists in England and Austria around this time laid the foundation for the other traditions that were to follow.

Rogers (1995) attributes the next major strides in change research to Rural Sociology, particularly the 1943 Ryan and Gross study of the diffusion of hybrid seed corn in Iowa.  From there, independent efforts in other fields like Communication Theory added to further growth in anthropology and sociology to broaden the knowledge base of the field.

Change research really took off in the early 1970s, with seminal publications in each of the research traditions most commonly seen in education originating around that time.  As of 1995, Rogers identifies a total of ten such traditions, comprising over 3,000 research studies focusing on change.

Rogers (1995, pp. 5-6) notes that change is a specialized instance of the general communication model.  In that model, a sender wishes to communicate a message to a receiver.  This is accomplished using a medium, which is essentially a means for establishing a channel through the environment between the communicants.  However, this environment also contains interference which can disrupt the medium or distort the message.

In the special case of this model that is change, the sender is called a change agent; the message is the innovation and the receiver is the intended adopter.  The change process serves as the medium that establishes the channel through the environment, and interference is present in the form of resistance to change.

These components of what Ellsworth (2000) has termed the "change communication model" are the perspectives along which the major schools of educational change research have formed.  While most of these perspectives were originally formed in isolation, the systemic paradigm recognizes that the model they comprise is itself a system--and that lasting change must recognize their interdependence and seek to create synergies that reinforce each of their efforts.

Also see:

• Systems theory overview
  
• Why is educational change so important right now?
  

Last Modified: 15 January 2000
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