Educational reform as innovation: A qualitative study on the perceptions of Brazilian agricultural school teachers

Abstract

This qualitative study examines the perceptions of federally supported agricultural school teachers toward the attributes of two educational innovations brought by the educational reform currently undergoing in Brazil — the separation between academic and professional education and the emergence of the competency-based modular curriculum. The framework for the study was Rogers' (1995) diffusion of innovations theory, focusing specifically on the five attributes of innovation as defined by Rogers: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Compatibility and relative advantage were the major attributes contributing to teachers' reactions to the innovations. Teachers have demonstrated a high degree of philosophical and ideological incompatibility with the separation between academic and professional education. Lack of teacher preparation programs was found to be the biggest operational flaw in the implementation of the reform. Support for this study was provided by CAPES Brazilian Foundation, and by the Office of International Programs of the College of Agricultural Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. Findings of this study were presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education on April 8–12, 2003, in Raleigh, North Carolina-USA.