Public school principals’ perceptions of innovation

Public education has long been reputed to be a system that is outdated. However, public education, like any organization has seen its share of change and innovation. This mixed-method study explored the perceptions of public school principals’ toward individual and organizational innovativeness.The quantitative phase of the study consisted of a purposeful sample of 23 school principals. It was a partial replication of two previous studies conducted by Mitchell 2008 and Williams 2013, who examined school superintendents’ perceptions of individual and organizational innovativeness. Individual and organizational characteristics were analyzed for statistical significance. In addition, principals’ survey responses were calculated to determine their adopter category according to Rogers’ 2003 classifications. Findings were similar to the replicated studies. Principals, like superintendents, viewed themselves to be more innovative than their schools. Significant, but weak differences were found for the tested professional practices, professional capacity, and gender. There were no significant differences found with the remaining characteristics. The qualitative phase of this study consisted of a purposeful sample of 13 principals who volunteered to participate in interviews from the survey phase. This phase explored principals’ views, perceptions, and challenges they faced in fostering innovation in their schools. Findings from this phase further elaborated on principals’ perceptions regarding individual and organizational innovativeness from the quantitative phase. Both phases of this study were conducted and analyzed separately. Findings from each phase were then synthesized to further clarify principals’ perceptions, and common understanding toward fostering innovation. Although some of the variables tested indicated statistically significant differences, principals did not view them as critical to fostering innovation during interviews. The findings from this study indicated that principals’ perceived their own and their school’s innovativeness as essential to providing students with a meaningful education. It became clear through interviews that factors such as financial resources, student socioeconomic status, and enrolment were not as critical to the innovation process in comparison to the human element of fostering relationships. Importantly, principals perceived their role as leaders as being fraught with complexity in terms of setting the right conditions for innovation to blossom.