Measuring innovation in education with a special focus on the impact of organisational characteristics

Abstract

Innovations created by teachers, teacher communities and schools in their daily practice play a key role in improving the quality and effectiveness of education. As protocols, central regulations, ready-made teaching materials do not provide solutions to all problems emerging in daily practice the invention of new, original solutions are necessary to respond the challenges teachers and schools encounter in their everyday work. Similarly to other knowledge intensive professions creativity and innovativeness are necessary skills for teachers and teacher communities to work effectively. In many countries schools are encouraged to support innovative work behaviour and they are expected to manage effectively change and innovation processes. The increasing importance of innovations and innovation processes in education raises the question of how to measure innovation in this sector and how decision makers can use innovation data. This article presents some of the outcomes of an education sector innovation survey conducted in Hungary in 2018. It demonstrates the possibility to design data collection instruments that allow capturing school/department level innovation processes. The article focuses on one specific problem area: the relationship between organisational characteristics and innovation activity/behaviour.