SEER's EIC Model™ Evaluation Process

    The wide diversity of school structures, instructional practices, student abilities, administrative buy-in, and community support have motivated SEER to develop a framework for monitoring and assessing implementation of the EIC Model™. The resulting evaluation lays the groundwork for each school's plans for continuously improving their implementation of the EIC Model™.
    SEER’s assessment framework includes a series of instruments and techniques that allow educators to conduct both formative and summative evaluations of their progress throughout the process of implementing the EIC Model™. This evaluation system allows the participants to assess their understanding of the EIC Model™; identify their concerns about the implementation process; evaluate and monitor their progress toward implementation; and, measure the extent to which the school team has developed leadership and community support.
     SEER’s EIC Model™ evaluation approach includes three key components:

• Self-evaluation rubrics;
• Stages of Concern questionnaire (SoC); and,
• Innovation Configuration instrument (IC).

     SEER worked collaboratively with its 12 member state departments of education to develop an assessment framework, based on the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) developed by the University of Texas at Austin and the Southwest Regional Educational Development Laboratory. CBAM is a conceptual framework that describes, explains and predicts probable teacher/user/participant behavior in the change process. The model is intended to measure the adoption of an innovation by educators and includes a set of tools for measuring the implementation of an innovation.

EIC Model™ Self-evaluation Rubrics
     SEER has worked with its 12 state representatives to develop a rubric-based instrument to assess the current status of school programs in relation to the principal educational characteristics of the EIC Model™. The rubrics are organized around each of the educational components of an EIC Model™ program as well as considering leadership and community involvement processes. These rubrics establish standards for implementing the EIC Model™ allowing educators to: understand what is expected of them; outline implementation strategies; define performance; and, provide for ongoing program evaluation.
     Educators who participate in EIC Model™ Implementation Seminars receive professional development in the use of the rubrics. They are encouraged to gather and use these data as a baseline for comparison in measuring their programmatic growth and as the basis for setting new programmatic goals. School teams are also instructed to utilize the rubrics for ongoing reflection and evaluation of their overall program status.

Stages of Concern
    The Stages of Concern (SoC) instrument is a diagnostic tool created by CBAM to explain the level of teacher buy-in and to propose ways to monitor and increase implementation of education innovations. The SoC instrument is used to measure how people feel about the innovation that they are expected to implement.
     SEER administers the SoC questionnaire to teachers as they begin to implement the EIC Model™. The results of the questionnaire provide personal perspective on the participants’ concerns about implementing the EIC Model™. Periodically, during implementation, the SoC is re-administered to provide a current picture of the teachers’ continued commitment to the EIC Model™ and professional/personal issues that may arise

Innovation Configuration
    The Innovation Configuration (IC) is a diagnostic methodology created by CBAM to look at the way teachers actually implement innovations in educational practice. SEER worked with a staff consultant from the Southwest Regional Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) to develop an EIC Model™-specific Innovation Configuration instrument. This instrument helps SEER evaluate the qualities of various instructional practice as schools work to fully implement the EIC Model™.
     SEER field tested its IC instrument in February 2000 with 10 schools in its Minnesota network. SEER administers the IC to teachers in EIC Model™ schools, through an interview process, before the end of the first year of their program implementation and periodically thereafter. Based on the analysis of the data, SEER will be able to offer support, make recommendations for adapting the innovation and communicate progress to various stakeholders.