A study of the importance and credibility of some sources of information in evaluating innovations in education
Date
1973
Authors
Camp, Donald Barrington Melvin
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine the importance and credibility of some sources of information in evaluating innovations . Randomly selected educational researchers, administrators and teachers in British Columbia were asked to rank nine sources of information for importance and select six standard sources of information for credibility in evaluating educational innovations in order to determine whether or not these groups use the same or different criteria in their evaluations.
Analysis was performed using the Spear man rank order correlation coefficient. The correlation between ranking of information for importance by educational researchers and principals, and between educational researchers and teachers was judged significant indicating that these groups use the same criteria when ranking sources of information for importance in evaluating innovations. The correlation between the credibility evaluation of educational researchers and principals, between researchers and teachers, and between researchers and District Superintendents was judged insignificant indicating that researchers, administrators and teachers use different criteria when selecting sources of information for credibility in evaluating educational innovations.
District Superintendents were the only group who consistently disagreed with researchers on the importance and credibility of information. Major areas of disagreement between these two groups were the importance of the administrator questionnaire and the standardized test, and the credibility of the B.O. Department of Education and the university professor as sources of information. Superintendents ranked the administrator questionnaire higher in importance, and the B.C. Department of Education higher in credibility, than did the educational researcher.
The results of this present study do not support the findings of previous research, which has indicated that the apparent lag between educational research and its implementation as educational innovation may be the result of educational researchers and teachers using different criteria in evaluating innovations in education.