What Skills Do Educational “Change Agents” Need? An Empirical View

ABSTRACT

Though “change agents” are widely used to help with current school improvement programs, little is known empirically about the skills they need to function effectively.

This article reports findings from a two-year study of 17 change agents working in three New York City improvement programs. Interview, observation, and ranking data were collected from the change agents, their managers, and their school clients.

Qualitative and quantitative data analysis occurred along six major lines: review of skills appearing in specific critical incidents, comparison of “outstanding” vs. “average” change agents, tabulation of frequency of skills mentioned, tabulation of skills mentioned as strengths, tabulation of skills ranked as “typical” by managers and change agents, and skills they recommended for training attention.

A synthesis of findings resulted in a list of 18 key skills for educational change agents. These included 6 general skills: interpersonal ease, group functioning, training/doing workshops, master teacher, educational content, and administrative/organizational ability.

Twelve specific skills appeared, in four areas. In the “personal” area the skill of initiative-taking was crucial. In the “socio-emotional process” area, the skills were rapport-building, support, conflict mediation, collaboration, and confrontation. In the “task” area, the skills were individual diagnosis, organizational diagnosis, and managing/controlling. Finally, in the area of “educational content,” the key skills were resource-bringing and demonstration.

These findings have some clear implications. First, some preliminary criteria for selecting change agents can be discerned; the most appropriate methods are clearly performance-oriented. The training implications are illustrated by a description of six training modules prepared by the authors. Next steps in research on change agent skills should press the distinction between “average” and “outstanding” performance, and assess more carefully how the contextual demands of improvement programs and schools influence that performance. Locating clusters of skills—and of change agent types—also looks promising. Attention should be paid to change agent style as it interacts with skill.