It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools

Implementation processes are significantly influenced by contextual conditions. To investigate which context factors are implicitly salient for teachers, we conducted interviews with N = 43 elementary school teachers who gave recommendations for designing effective teacher professional development f...

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Main Authors: Mareike Ehlert, Marie Adloff, Elmar Souvignier
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2025-01-01
Series:Education Inquiry
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/20004508.2025.2454083
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author Mareike Ehlert
Marie Adloff
Elmar Souvignier
author_facet Mareike Ehlert
Marie Adloff
Elmar Souvignier
author_sort Mareike Ehlert
collection DOAJ
description Implementation processes are significantly influenced by contextual conditions. To investigate which context factors are implicitly salient for teachers, we conducted interviews with N = 43 elementary school teachers who gave recommendations for designing effective teacher professional development for implementing a reading innovation into their school. On average, teachers mentioned M = 26 contextual factors unprompted to explain their recommendations. Among these, time and material resources as well as factors regarding their colleagues (cooperation, readiness for innovation, prior knowledge) were most frequently mentioned. While most contextual factors were consistently negatively framed (lacking time, staff and financial resources), teachers classified collegial cooperation, their colleagues’ prior knowledge and material resources at their school both as a barrier and as a resource. The analysis of a code map revealed that a lack of time co-occurred most frequently with a lack of personnel resources and insufficient staff prior knowledge. However, time resources also often co-occurred with positive views on collegial cooperation and material resources. These findings suggest that PD programmes should specifically address teachers’ time resources and consider cooperation and prepared material as resources to overcome context constraints.
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spelling doaj-art-4ea42175000e4d5cb25c3506846632f02025-01-20T08:48:28ZengTaylor & Francis GroupEducation Inquiry2000-45082025-01-0112010.1080/20004508.2025.2454083It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schoolsMareike Ehlert0Marie Adloff1Elmar Souvignier2Institute for Psychology in Education, University of Münster, Münster, GermanyInstitute for Psychology in Education, University of Münster, Münster, GermanyInstitute for Psychology in Education, University of Münster, Münster, GermanyImplementation processes are significantly influenced by contextual conditions. To investigate which context factors are implicitly salient for teachers, we conducted interviews with N = 43 elementary school teachers who gave recommendations for designing effective teacher professional development for implementing a reading innovation into their school. On average, teachers mentioned M = 26 contextual factors unprompted to explain their recommendations. Among these, time and material resources as well as factors regarding their colleagues (cooperation, readiness for innovation, prior knowledge) were most frequently mentioned. While most contextual factors were consistently negatively framed (lacking time, staff and financial resources), teachers classified collegial cooperation, their colleagues’ prior knowledge and material resources at their school both as a barrier and as a resource. The analysis of a code map revealed that a lack of time co-occurred most frequently with a lack of personnel resources and insufficient staff prior knowledge. However, time resources also often co-occurred with positive views on collegial cooperation and material resources. These findings suggest that PD programmes should specifically address teachers’ time resources and consider cooperation and prepared material as resources to overcome context constraints.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/20004508.2025.2454083Teacher learningprofessional developmentteacher trainingschool contextreading innovations
spellingShingle Mareike Ehlert
Marie Adloff
Elmar Souvignier
It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools
Education Inquiry
Teacher learning
professional development
teacher training
school context
reading innovations
title It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools
title_full It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools
title_fullStr It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools
title_full_unstemmed It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools
title_short It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools
title_sort it s about time teachers perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools
topic Teacher learning
professional development
teacher training
school context
reading innovations
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/20004508.2025.2454083
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