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Illustrating the need for a ‘Theory of Change’ in implementation processes

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to present the need for stakeholders to share an agreed-on Theory of Change (ToC) during the various phases of an implementation process. To this end, we draw on the Swedish Boost for Mathematics (BM), a large-scale national educational initiative, and its intrinsic ‘algebra’ instructional module. More precisely, we analyze a cohort of official evaluation reports on the BM from the perspective of a critical case study. The BM’s embedded algebra module and its associated material offer an instrumental example. This analysis relies on a selection of theoretical constructs related to Implementation Research (IR), such as (educational) innovation, value, stakeholders, degree of merit, policy dimension, theory-driven evaluation, and ToC. These theoretical constructs derive from both general IR and mathematics education research. We identify four phases of implementation, based on the analyses of the BM, namely, policy and organization, development, implementation, and evaluation. The analyses illustrate the need for alignment among these phases, associated with the endorsed, enacted, recognized and applied ToC of stakeholders. As a critical example, BM illustrates the many pitfalls of large-scale, scaled-up educational innovations—one of these being the potential failure of evaluations—owing to lack of an agreed-on ToC.

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Notes

  1. After the official evaluations of the BM, the algebra module was updated in August 2018 to include a text about programming.

  2. Skolverket is the Swedish government’s central administrative authority for the public school system. A school’s responsibilities encompass training principals, further education, professional development, and providing information about, and disseminating, knowledge about education (Skolverket 2017).

  3. The NCM is the Swedish national resource center for mathematics. The NCM’s main responsibility is to support the development of Swedish mathematics education. The NCM is an independent institution at the University of Gothenburg, http://ncm.gu.se.

  4. The translation of Matematiklyftet into Boost for Mathematics is Skolverket’s own.

  5. When referring to the Lärportal we refer exclusively to the BM internet portal: https://larportalen.skolverket.se/#/.

  6. Personal communication from Peter Nyström, director of the NCM, May 16, 2018.

  7. https://larportalen.skolverket.se/#/modul/1-matematik/Grundskola/431_algebra%20%C3%A5k7-9 (accessed July 14, 2020).

  8. Learning studies is a reinterpretation of lesson studies, where a chosen theory is used to design a lesson.

  9. Excluding the video from 2017, which was added after the evaluation of the BM.

  10. Kieran (1992) found that a change in students’ understanding of the equals sign from operational to indicating equivalence requires arithmetical experience of expressions that include at least two operations, on both the right- and left-hand sides of the equals sign, e.g., 7 ∙ 2 + 3 − 2 = 5 ∙ 2 − 1 + 6.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was partly written in the frame of project 2020-04090 under Swedish Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Uffe Thomas Jankvist & Rikke Maagaard Gregersen

  2. VIA University College, Aarhus, Denmark

    Sine Duedahl Lauridsen

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  1. Uffe Thomas Jankvist
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Correspondence to Uffe Thomas Jankvist.

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Jankvist, U.T., Gregersen, R.M. & Lauridsen, S.D. Illustrating the need for a ‘Theory of Change’ in implementation processes. ZDM Mathematics Education 53, 1047–1057 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-021-01238-1

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