Characteristics of Dissemination Success (CODS) Framework

See more Change Theories »Summary written by Stephanie Chasteen, Chasteen Educational Consulting, stephanie@chasteenconsulting.com

Summary

The Characteristics of Dissemination Success(CODS) framework was developed by Bourrie and colleagues to identify characteristics that enhance the likelihood that educational innovations will be adopted.

CODS builds on the Theory of Planned Behavior (Azjen, 1991) and the Innovation-Decision model (Rogers, 2003), which outline, respectively, what is needed for an individual to undertake action or to adopt an innovation. CODS expands on these theories to include the characteristics of innovationsand of the educational systemwhich relate to change in behavior.

The CODS framework identifies characteristics in each of the following 4 areas:

• Characteristics of the Educational Innovation
• Characteristics of Students
• Characteristics of Faculty Members
• Characteristics of Administrators

These are all taken as antecedents of an individual's intention to adopt a teaching method, and are assumed to affect actual adoption and routine use.

The below figure modified from Bourrie et al. (2014) outlines this model. The Delphi Ranking indicates the relative ranking in terms of expert opinion on the importance of this characteristic. Thus, the top-ranked characteristics are the ones that were indicated as most important.

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Provenance: Tessa Maire Andrews modified from Bourrie et al., 2014
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Example of Use

I used this theory in the Get the Facts Out project (getthefactsout.org, NSF 1821710 & 1821462), a project which shares presentations, brochures, and other material for faculty to use when sharing information about the teaching profession with students or other faculty. I used this theory as external evaluator when examining the potential for widespread use of the resources the project was developing (i.e. slide presentations, brochures, posters, etc.). I focused on characteristic of the innovation itself in this example. I listed out the first four characteristics of educational innovations, focusing on the first four as they were the ones indicated as being most important by experts (see Figure 1): Relative advantage, Ease to implement, Ease of use, and Practicality of the concept. This allowed me to provide feedback about the potential for widespread use of the Get the Facts Out project. For each characteristic, I listed project strengths and challenges. For example, for "ease of use" a strength was that materials are ready to use, but a challenge was that learning to use them takes some time. For "relevance to job" a strength is that the project focuses on helping students find their life path, which is at the heart of faculty's work, but a challenge is that advising is only a small piece of their overall responsibilities.  I used these insights to identify the key strengths of the project's approach and generate recommendations for improvement.

Assumptions & Limitations

The main limitation of this model is that the factors in the model were identified a priori, and not tested for actual effectiveness. Since the original study in 2014 there has not been a systematic test of the CODS model. However, those factors align well with other models (e.g., Rogers 2003) and with another study (Hazen, Wu and Sankar, 2012) and is supported by expert opinion: This study used a Delphi survey which uses a systematic survey of a panel of experts to arrive at common set of characteristics.

This model assumes that a marker of success for the innovation is that the intended audience learns about the method and decides to adopt it and use it in a routine manner. Thus, it assumes that adoption is a somewhat linear process. This leads to the some of the same limitations as for the Innovation-Decision model (Rogers, 2003): That the model assumes that adopting the innovation is good for the individual and society, and that the model ignores that change is a long-term and iterative process. However, CODS avoids some of the other critiques of Rogers by including an assumption that the innovation might be adapted and including a broader look at the educational system beyond individuals. CODS also partially assumes that individuals act rationally, rather than emotionally.

Related Theories

Intellectual Heritage

Theory of planned behavior: Ajzen, I. (1991). The Theory of Planned Behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,50, 179–211.

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press.

Original Publication of Theory

D. M. Bourrie, C. G. Gegelski, L. A. Jones-Farmer and C. S. Sankar, Identifying Characteristics of Dissemination Success Using an Expert Panel, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 12(4), 2014.

D. M. Bourrie, C. G. Gegelski, L. A. Jones-Farmer and C. S. Sankar, What Makes Educational Innovations Stick? A Delphi Approach, 2014 ASEE Southeast Section Conference Proceedings, ASEE, 2014.

Other References

C. Henderson, R. Cole, J. Froyd, D. G. Friedrichsen, R. Khatri, and C. Stanford, Designing Educational Innovations for Sustained Adoptions, Increase the Impact (2015). Accessed at http://increasetheimpact.com. [This booklet outlines the stages of propagation of an educational innovation, based on user-centered design to understand user motivation and barriers.]

Hazen B. T., Wu Y., & Sankar C. S. (2012). Factors that influence dissemination in engineering education. IEEE Transactions on Education, 55(3), 384–393

Taylor, S., & Todd, P. (1995). Decomposition and crossover effects in the theory of planned behavior: A study of consumer adoption intentions. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 12(2), 137–155.