THE INNOVATION PROCESS OF INDIVIDUALIZED INSTRUCTION IN SOME ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN THE PHILIPPINES: TOWARDS A MODEL OF AN INNOVATION PROCESS IN EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

The objective of this research was to develop a model of an innovation process in organizations and to explore its utility in describing and understanding concrete innovations. This was accomplished through a case study of the innovative process of individualized instruction in six private elementary schools in the Philippines.;An interactive model of the innovation process of individualized instruction was designed to guide the in-depth investigation of the actual innovation process in these schools. The outcome of the investigation was synthesized in six case study reports. The analysis of the case studies resulted in the revision of the model.;The revised model is seen as the main contribution of this research.;The significance of the study lies in the utility of this revised model for research and theory on innovations in organizations: (1) The general conception of the model as consisting of two dimensions--a linear and a cyclical dimension--offers a new focus on the investigation of innovations in organizations. (2) The model tends to support the open systems perspective rather than the rational and closed systems perspective of organizations. This has some implications for theory on innovations and organizations and would merit further investigation. (3) This research has some valuable implications for studying educational innovations. The leverage that this model yields in identifying the critical variables that discriminate categories of schools could be useful in the study of various innovations in different types of schools. The theoretical issues that have been identified in the study could be of value to administrators, practitioners and other researchers.;The six schools that were chosen for the study included: (1) two ADOPTERS--schools that adopted individualized instruction and continued to support its implementation; (2) two ABANDONERS--schools that adopted the innovation but discontinued its implementation; (3) two REJECTORS--schools that were aware of the availability of the innovation but decided not to adopt it.;This study has also demonstrated that there are trade-offs in conducting an in-depth investigation of a few schools versus the usual cross-sectional correlation studies involving many schools. Thus, this research has opened a new trail for other possible ways of looking at innovations in organizations.