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Attributes that Enable a Virtual High School to go to Scale

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Date Issued:
2007
Summary:
As our nation demands system-wide improvement, external providers are challenged to scale up educational reform efforts, to implement them more widely, more deeply, and more rapidly than in the past. Virtual high schools come at a time when public education is being challenged by mandates for new forms of educational choice and supplemental services. Replicating success of educational reforms on a large scale is a vexing issue. Failure to scale them up is accredited to the absence of a practical theory that accounts for the institutional complexities operating on changes of practice. This research developed such a practical theory gleaning attributes from Comprehensive School Reform, Diffusion of Innovation, and Leadership and Scale theories. The purpose of this study was to determine the attributes that contribute to the scalability of the virtual high school. Scalability was separated into two levels; a traditional notion of scaling up reforms, and the more contemporary idea of going to scale. The conceptual framework suggested that scalability was dependent upon the frequency of the attributes associated with these levels. Content analysis was conducted on N = 270 documents pertaining to virtual high schools. A validation subset of N = 137 documents on five specific virtual high schools was used. An attribute checklist assisted the coding, classifying 39 attributes into five mutually exclusive categories, along with seven contextual factors that potentially moderated scalability. Analysis on the validation subset produced similar findings to those of the universal sample set. A statistical model was developed that predicted a large amount (52 %) of the variation of scalability. When scaling up attributes are prevalent both in the innovation's design, the communication channels, and leadership capabilities then going to scale can be achieved O..er time. Specifically, virtual high schools should focus on three significant scaling up attributes: (a) offering quality curriculum aligned to high national/state standards, (b) creating networks with other virtual high school adopters, and (c) strong management, in order to go to scale. The development of a practical theory must include these attributes in order for the virtual high school to go to scale.
Title: Attributes that Enable a Virtual High School to go to Scale.
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Name(s): Diamond, Daryl
Pisapia, John, Thesis advisor
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Created: 2007
Date Issued: 2007
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 312 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: As our nation demands system-wide improvement, external providers are challenged to scale up educational reform efforts, to implement them more widely, more deeply, and more rapidly than in the past. Virtual high schools come at a time when public education is being challenged by mandates for new forms of educational choice and supplemental services. Replicating success of educational reforms on a large scale is a vexing issue. Failure to scale them up is accredited to the absence of a practical theory that accounts for the institutional complexities operating on changes of practice. This research developed such a practical theory gleaning attributes from Comprehensive School Reform, Diffusion of Innovation, and Leadership and Scale theories. The purpose of this study was to determine the attributes that contribute to the scalability of the virtual high school. Scalability was separated into two levels; a traditional notion of scaling up reforms, and the more contemporary idea of going to scale. The conceptual framework suggested that scalability was dependent upon the frequency of the attributes associated with these levels. Content analysis was conducted on N = 270 documents pertaining to virtual high schools. A validation subset of N = 137 documents on five specific virtual high schools was used. An attribute checklist assisted the coding, classifying 39 attributes into five mutually exclusive categories, along with seven contextual factors that potentially moderated scalability. Analysis on the validation subset produced similar findings to those of the universal sample set. A statistical model was developed that predicted a large amount (52 %) of the variation of scalability. When scaling up attributes are prevalent both in the innovation's design, the communication channels, and leadership capabilities then going to scale can be achieved O..er time. Specifically, virtual high schools should focus on three significant scaling up attributes: (a) offering quality curriculum aligned to high national/state standards, (b) creating networks with other virtual high school adopters, and (c) strong management, in order to go to scale. The development of a practical theory must include these attributes in order for the virtual high school to go to scale.
Identifier: FA00000661 (IID)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): College of Education
Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2007.
Subject(s): Organizational change--Management
Educational change--Management
Virtual reality in education
School improvement programs
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000661
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.