Institutional Renewal Scale

Abstract

The Institutional Renewal Scale (IRS), developed by R. J. Crowley in 1976, is a specialized psychometric instrument designed to measure the attitudes of educators, particularly secondary school teachers, toward the concept and implementation of educational innovation. The scale was rigorously developed and refined from an initial pool of 20 items down to a final, more concise nine-item version. It serves as a tool for researchers and administrators seeking to understand the psychological disposition of staff members concerning institutional change and progressive pedagogical practices.

Keywords

Institutional Renewal Scale, IRS, educational innovation, teacher attitudes, scale development, psychometrics, secondary education, school reform.

Authors

R. J. Crowley

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Institutional Renewal Scale (IRS) is to quantify the attitudes held by educational professionals regarding the introduction and acceptance of new methods, curricula, and structural changes within educational settings. Measuring this attitude is crucial for predicting the success or failure of reform efforts, as teacher acceptance is often a significant predictor of institutional change effectiveness.

The IRS provides a structured framework for assessing whether teachers view innovations as beneficial catalysts for improvement or as unnecessary hindrances to sound educational practice. It helps identify staff resistance or enthusiasm, allowing institutions to tailor implementation strategies appropriately.

Construct

The IRS measures the psychological construct of Attitude Toward Educational Innovation. This construct is understood as a composite of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral intentions concerning the desirability and feasibility of adopting new educational ideas and practices. The scale attempts to capture the complexity of this attitude, ranging from strong advocacy for progressive change to staunch skepticism regarding the value of renewal efforts.

The underlying structure of this construct, as revealed through statistical analysis, suggests that attitudes toward renewal are not monolithic. Factor analysis indicated that the construct separates into two distinct underlying dimensions, implying that different facets of innovation—such as perceived financial cost versus potential for improvement—may be evaluated independently by respondents.

Validity

The validity of the Institutional Renewal Scale was established primarily through concurrent validation techniques. Concurrent validity was demonstrated by correlating the IRS scores with established measures of teacher disposition and educational outlook.

• The IRS was correlated with the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory (Cook, et al., 1951), a widely recognized instrument measuring teacher attitudes toward students and school work.
• It was also correlated with the Attitudes toward Education Scale (Kerlinger, 1968), which assesses broader philosophical views regarding educational principles.
• In addition to correlation studies, a known-groups technique was employed. This method involved administering the scale to groups expected to hold differing attitudes toward innovation (e.g., self-identified innovators versus traditionalists) to ensure the IRS could successfully discriminate between them, thus lending further support to its validity claims.

Reliability

The reliability of the Institutional Renewal Scale was assessed using the coefficient of internal consistency, a measure of how well the items within the scale measure the same underlying construct. Initially, the full set of items demonstrated a satisfactory coefficient of 0.82.

Further analysis and refinement led to the deletion of three specific items (items 2, 6, and 7), which resulted in a notable increase in the scale’s reliability. The revised version of the IRS achieved a significantly strong coefficient of internal consistency, reaching 0.88, indicating high consistency and homogeneity among the final set of nine items used in the scale.

Factor Analysis

To investigate the dimensional structure of the attitudes measured, a factor analysis was performed on the teacher response data. The statistical procedure utilized a normalized varimax rotation method. This rotation technique is commonly employed to achieve a clearer separation of underlying factors.

The results of the analysis indicated that the scale measures two distinct factors. This finding suggests that while the items collectively measure a general attitude toward renewal, this attitude is supported by two separate yet correlated psychological dimensions, which may represent differing facets of acceptance, such as the perceived utility versus the perceived risk associated with adopting innovations.

Instrument

Test Type: Attitude Scale/Self-Report Inventory

Format: Likert Scale format with six response options.

Language Available: English (Original development language).

Population Group: Educational Professionals (Specifically teachers).

Age Group: Adult (Professionally employed teachers).

Population Details: The scale was standardized and validated primarily on samples of secondary school teachers. The initial construction sample included 126 secondary teachers, and the revised form was administered to a larger group of 378 secondary school teachers for final validation.

Test Methodology: The scale construction involved an initial item pool of 20 statements, which were rated for appropriateness by a panel of 48 secondary teachers. Based on initial testing on 126 teachers, individual phi coefficients were computed, leading to the deletion of eight items. Data analysis included reporting the distribution of responses, dichotomized response categories, item discriminating power, and the results of a chi-square test for item discrimination.

Keywords

Teacher assessment, educational measurement, attitude scale, scale development, psychometric instrument, institutional change, R. J. Crowley, secondary school, concurrent validity.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Information not available.

Affiliation Email addresses: Information not available.

Correspondence Address: Information not available.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was developed and published in 1976. The source document reference, ERIC ED 156 678, indicates that the original research is publicly accessible via the ERIC clearinghouse system. The original PDF can be downloaded here: ERIC ED 156 678.

Reference’s

Crowley, R. J. (1976). The Institutional Renewal Scale: An instrument to measure attitudes toward educational innovation. ERIC ED 156 678.

Cook, W. W., et al. (1951). Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory. New York: Psychological Corporation.

Kerlinger, R. N. (1968). Attitude toward Education Scale, VII. Unpublished manuscript.

Items of the Institutional Renewal Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. I think that too much money is being spent on educational innovations when compared with the benefit that is being derived.
2. I am indifferent to the pros and cons about educational innovations but would not like to see my attitude become general.
3. There is a need to innovate but I do not find what I want in most current educational innovations.
4. I believe that educational innovation keeps alive what is best in education.
5. Most school professionals should become much more enthusiastic about educational innovation than they presently are.
6. School-wide emphasis on trying educational innovations should be a prominent characteristic of a school.
7. The educational innovations that gain acceptance seem to me to do so at the expense of equally valid techniques.
8. Most educational innovations suggest unlimited possibilities for schools.
9. In my opinion most educational innovations are a hindrance to a sound education because so many of them depend on exaggerated claims.
10. The appeal for the use of more educational innovations that are currently in use appears to me to be a response to fashion rather than to sober judgment.
11. School professionals should be willing to revise their beliefs and attitudes in order to accommodate more educa- tional innovations.
12. Experience with the process of innovating may well be worth the risks involved in innovating.

Scoring: Responses are measured on a six-point Likert scale, including: Strongly Agree, Agree, Mildly Agree, Mildly Disagree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree.