Research Review: CBAM in depth

Stephen E. Anderson reviews the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), which may help the ISTUS team to understand the process of facilitating educational change that is leveraged by social media

Among the theories of technology adoption and diffusion, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM, developed by Hall and colleagues) stands out, since it has been developed and evaluated in education. It is not limited to technology adoption in education. However, in the face of educational change related to technology use, recently the CBAM has received some wider attention.

The CBAM offers a set of diagnostic tools for facilitators who aim to put educational innovations into practice. Key concepts are Stages of Concern (SoC), Levels of Use (LoU) and Innovation Configurations (IC). The first one, for example, describes a path of development educational staff might go through while adopting educational advancements: from awareness to informational knowledge and personal affection, further on from issues of how to manage and what consequences are to expect to collaboration and refocusing. Of course, these stages are an simplified model. However, it is worth while to acknowledge that change takes time, and different people have different speeds in embracing new technology for their educational tasks.

Anderson’s article is quite comprehensive and informative. It is a good start to dig into the history, presence and future of the CBAM, including the shortcomings as well as possible improvements and extensions. It also contains a nearly complete bibliography of the most relevant publications related to the CBAM.

Interesting finding: “The CBAM concept of Innovation Configations (IC) grew out of the recognition that teachers rarely implemented the same innovation in exactly the same way. It was even questionable sometimes whether the practices […] were valid examples of the intended innovations.” (p. 336). Educational staff adopts educational innovations eclectically, therefore, there is no one and only way to use technology like social media the right way.

Anderson, S. E. (1997), Understanding Teacher Change: Revisiting the Concerns Based Adoption Model. Curriculum Inquiry, 27: 331–367. doi: 10.1111/0362-6784.00057

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0362-6784.00057/abstract