Chapter 2: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Change Orientations in Schools

As school leaders strive to lead their institutions toward success, they face an ever-changing landscape of educational reforms at local, state, and national levels. To remain relevant, schools are pressed to respond rapidly and intelligently to change forces. This chapter highlights the construct of school change at the collective level and identifies three converging aspects of change that congeal successful reform, including: teacher receptivity to change, the principal’s orientation to change, and receptivity of internal stakeholders to externally pressed changes. First, after a review of the change literature, a theoretically driven set of items to gauge faculty perceptions of the change orientations of teachers, the principal, and the community is developed. Then, the measure is tested and refined via factor analytic techniques. Finally, the Faculty Orientation Scale (FOS) is analyzed in a larger sample of schools via a set of theoretically derived hypotheses, which support the predictive validity of the change orientation scales by correlating them with school climate. Currently, researchers and the general public agree that public schools must change if they are going to be more successful. The questions, however, of how to change schools and under what conditions are perplexing. Simply put, change is the act of modifying, altering, or transforming a thought, practice, or belief (Quinn, 1996). Schools are bombarded with calls for change. Governmental mandates, district initiatives, and self-imposed changes pressure schools to alter their beliefs and practices. While federal mandates such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) routinely modify and redefine success, schools are pressed to embrace innovations to increase student learning. Thus, with federal funds and institutional status tied to student achievement, schools must adapt quickly to avoid losing ground. Coupled with increased accountability pressures, a renewed interest in understanding how schools influence student achievement has also surfaced (Heck, 2007). According to Uline, Miller, and Tschannen-Moran (1998), “Three decades ago we were questioning whether or not schools mattered at all; we now find ourselves struggling to make sense of the hundreds of possible attributes that affect students’ ability to learn” (p. 464). Fueled by NCLB mandates, schools continue to pursue effective learning strategies by altering campus environments. However, teachers are perceived to be notoriously resistant to change (Mellencamp, 1992). According to Eichholz (1963), educators often oppose change because it requires modification of personal beliefs and initially decreases organizational efficiency. Moreover, Bulach (2001) posits that failure to understand a school’s culture prior to change implementation often results in participant resistance.