RESEARCH TOPIC

Transform Teaching With the Diffusion of Innovation

Brief Defenition of the Topic:

Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what
rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures.
Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels
over time among the members of a social system. Diffusion is a special type of
communication concerned with the spread of messages that are perceived as new ideas.
An innovation, simply put, is an idea perceived as new by the individual.
An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other
unit of adoption. The characteristics of an innovation, as perceived by the members of a
social system, determine its rate of adoption.

The four main elements in the diffusion of new ideas are:

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)

The innovation
Communication channels
Time
The social system (context)

1.The innovation
Why do certain innovations spread more quickly than others? The innovation, to spread and
be adopted should show:
The characteristics which determine an innovation's rate of adoption are:
(1) Relative advantage
2) Compatibility
(3) Complexity
(4) Trialability
(5) Observability to those people within the social system.

Relative advantage
1

This is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes
by a particular group of users, measured in terms that matter to those users, like economic
advantage, social prestige, convenience, or satisfaction. The greater the perceived relative
advantage of an innovation, the more rapid its rate of adoption is likely to be.
There are no absolute rules for what constitutes relative advantage. It depends on the
particular perceptions and needs of the user group.

Compatibility with existing values and practices

This is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the values,
past experiences, and needs of potential adopters. An idea that is incompatible with their
values, norms or practices will not be adopted as rapidly as an innovation that is compatible.

Simplicity and ease of use

This is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use.
New ideas that are simpler to understand are adopted more rapidly than innovations that
require the adopter to develop new skills and understandings.

Trialability
This is the degree to which an innovation can be experimented with on a limited basis. An
innovation that is trialable represents less risk to the individual who is considering it.

Observable results
The easier it is for individuals to see the results of an innovation, the more likely they are to
adopt it. Visible results lower uncertainty and also stimulate peer discussion of a new idea,
as friends and neighbours of an adopter often request information about it.

According to Everett Rogers, these five qualities determine between 49 and 87 percent of
the variation in the adoption of new products.
These five qualities make a valuable checklist to frame focus group discussions or project
evaluations. They can help identify weaknesses to be addressed when improving products
or behaviours.

Reinvention is a key principle in Diffusion of Innovations. The success of an innovation

depends on how well it evolves to meet the needs of more and more demanding and riskaverse individuals in a population (the history of the mobile phone is a perfect example).
A good way to achieve this is to make users into partners in a continuous process of
redevelopment. Computer games companies, pharmaceutical corporations and rural
research institutes are examples of organisations that seek to make users active partners in
improving innovations by supporting user communities or by applying participative action
research techniques.
Many computer games are now built with the intention that they will be modiied by
enthusiastic users. Says consumer behaviour expert, Francine Gardin. Theyre actually
participating in the design of the game. These consumers are really passionate about the
game its almost like a cult. They have an incredible sense of loyalty and ownership of that
brand. Instead of complaining, they fix the product.
The concept of reinvention is important because it tells us that no product or process can
rest on its laurels: continuous improvement is the key to spreading an innovation.

The importance of peer-peer conversations and peer

networks
The second important insight is that impersonal marketing methods like advertising and
media stories may spread information about new innovations, but its conversations that
spread adoption.
Why? Because the adoption of new products or behaviours involves the management of risk
and uncertainty. Its usually only people we personally know and trust and who we know
have successfully adopted the innovation themselves who can give us credible
reassurances that our attempts to change wont result in embarrassment, humiliation,
financial loss or wasted time. They are the people whose lived example is the best teacher
of how to adopt an innovation.
Early adopters are the exception to this rule. They are on the lookout for advantages and
tend to see the risks as low because they are financially more secure, more personally
confident, and better informed about the particular product or behaviour. Often they will
grasp at innovations on the basis of no more than a well worded news article. The rest of the
population, however, see higher risks in change, and therefore require assurance from
trusted peers that an innovation is do-able and provides genuine benefits.

As an innovation spreads from early adopters to majority audiences, face-toface

communication therefore becomes more essential to the decision to adopt. This principle is
embodied in the Bass Forecasting Model (below), which illustrates how faceto-face
communication becomes more influential over time, and mass media less infuential.
The emphasis on peer-peer communication has led diffusion scholars to be interested in
peer networks. Many diffusion-style campaigns now consciously attempt to utilise peer
networks, for instance by using Popular Opinion Leader techniques or various viral
marketing methods. These methods which are becoming increasingly popular aim to
recruit well-connected individuals to spread new ideas through their own social networks.
Opinion leader tactics have been successful in raising the standards of practice by medical
doctors,3 promoting weatherisation of homes,4 and encouraging safe sex in gay
communities.
Rogers notes that by 2003 there had been eight randomised controlled trials the gold
standard in evaluation all of which demonstrated the success of opinion leader tactics in
producing behavioural changes.

Understanding the needs of different user segments

Diffusion researchers believe that a population can be broken down into five different
segments, based on their propensity to adopt a specific innovation: innovators, early
adopters, early majorities, late majorities and laggards.
Each group has its own personality, at least as far as its attitude to a particular innovation
goes.
When thinking about these groups, dont imagine its your job to shift people from one
segment to another. It doesnt work that way. Its best to think of the membership of each
segment as static. Innovations spread when they evolve to meet the needs of successive
segments.

2.Communication
Communication is the process by which participants create and share information
with one another in order to reach a mutual understanding. A communication channel is the
means by which messages get from one individual to another. Mass media channels are
more effective in creating knowledge of innovations, whereas interpersonal channels are
more effective in forming and changing attitudes toward a new idea, and thus in influencing
the decision to adopt or reject a new idea. Most individuals evaluate an innovation, not on
the basis of scientific research by experts, but through the subjective evaluations of nearpeers who have adopted the innovation.

3.Time
The time dimension is involved in diffusion in three ways

3.1 - First, time is involved in the innovation-decision process. The innovationdecision

process is the mental process through which an individual (or other decisionmaking unit)
passes from first knowledge of an innovation to forming an attitude toward the innovation, to
a decision to adopt or reject, to implementation of the new idea, and to confirmation of this
decision. An individual seeks information at various stages in the innovation-decision
process in order to decrease uncertainty about an innovation's expected consequences.

5-Step Process:
(1) Knowledge person becomes aware of an innovation and has some idea of how it
functions
(2) Persuasion person forms a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the innovation
(3) Decision person engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the
innovation
(4) Implementation person puts an innovation into use
(5) Confirmation person evaluates the results of an innovation-decision already made

3.2 - The second way in which time is involved in diffusion is in the innovativeness of an
individual or other unit of adoption. Innovativeness is the degree to which an individual or
other unit of adoption is relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than other members of a
social system. There are five adopter categories, or classifications of the members of a
social system on the basis on their innovativeness
(1) Innovators 2.5%
(2) Early adopters 13.5%
(3) Early majority 34%
(4) Late majority 34%
(5) Laggards 16%

Innovators
The adoption process begins with a tiny number of visionary, imaginative innovators. They
often lavish great time, energy and creativity on developing new ideas and gadgets. And
they love to talk about them.

Right now, theyre the ones busily building stills to convert cooking oil into diesel fuel and
making websites to tell the world about it. Unfortunately their one-eyed fixation on a new
behaviour or gadget can make them seem dangerously idealistic to the pragmatic majority.
Yet no change program can thrive without their energy and commitment.
How to work with innovators:
Track them down and become their first followers7 , providing support and publicity for
their ideas.
Invite keen innovators to be partners in designing your project.

Early adopters
Once the beneits start to become apparent, early adopters leap in. They are on the
lookout for a strategic leap forward in their lives or businesses and are quick to make
connections between clever innovations and their personal needs.
They love getting an advantage over their peers and they have time and money to
invest. Theyre often fashion conscious and love to be seen as leaders: social prestige is one
of their biggest drivers. Their natural desire to be trend setters causes the takeoff of an
innovation. Early adopters tend to be more economically successful, well connected and well
informed and hence more socially respected. Their seemingly risky plunge into a new activity
sets tongues wagging. Others watch to see whether they prosper of fail, and people start
talking about the results. And early adopters like to talk about their successes. So the buzz
intensifies. What early adopters say about an innovation determines its success. The more
they crow and preen, the more likely the new behaviour or product will be perceived
positively by the majority of a population.
Early adopters are vital for another reason. They become an independent test bed, ironing
out the chinks and reinventing the innovation to suit mainstream needs.

Fortunately early adopters are an easy audience. They dont need much persuading
because they are on the lookout for anything that could give them a social or economic
edge. When you call a public meeting to discuss energy-saving devices or new farming

methods, theyre the ones who come along. Theyre the first people in your block to install a
water tank, mulch their garden, buy laptops for their kids, or install solar panels.
Some authorities talk about a chasm between visionary early adopters and
pragmatic majorities.8 They think the chasm explains why many products are initially popular
with early adopters but crash and burn before they reach mass markets. Everett Rogers
disagreed9 with the idea of a chasm. He thought early adopters and majorities formed a
continuum. However most early adopters still have radically different interests and needs
from most majorities, so even if theres no real chasm its a useful mental construct that
warns us against the easy assumption that one size fits all. Once again, what makes
products or practices spread is not persuasion. Its the whether the product or behaviour is
being reinvented to become easier, simpler, quicker, cheaper, and more advantageous.

How to work with early adopters:

Offer strong face-to-face support for a limited number of early adopters to trial the new
idea.
Study the trials carefully to discover how to make the idea more convenient, low cost and
marketable.
Reward their egos e.g. with media coverage.
Promote them as fashion leaders (beginning with the cultish end of the media market).
Recruit and train some as peer educators.
Maintain relationships with regular feedback

Early majority
Assuming the product or behaviour leaps the chasm, it may eventually reach majority
audiences. Early majorities are pragmatists, comfortable with moderately progressive ideas,
but wont act without solid proof of benefits. They are followers who are influenced by
mainstream fashions and wary of fads. They want to hear industry standard and endorsed
by normal, respectable folks.
Majorities are cost sensitive and risk averse. They are looking for simple, proven,
better ways of doing what they already do. They require guaranteed off-the-shelf
performance, minimum disruption, minimum commitment of time, minimum learning, and
either cost neutrality or rapid payback periods. And they hate complexity. They havent got
time to think about your product or project. Theyre too busy getting the kids to football and
running their businesses. If they do have spare time theyre not going to spend it fussing
around with complicated, expensive, inconvenient products or behaviours. They want to hear
plug-andplay, no sweat or user-friendly and value for money.
How to work with the early majority:

 Offer give-aways or competitions to stimulate buzz.

Use mainstream advertising and media stories featuring endorsements from credible,
respected, similar folks.
Lower the entry cost and guarantee performance.
Redesign to maximise ease and simplicity.
Cut the red tape: simplify application forms and instructions.
Provide strong customer service and support.

Late majority
They are conservative pragmatists who hate risk and are uncomfortable your new
idea. Practically their only driver is the fear of not fitting in, hence they will follow mainstream
fashions and established standards. They are often influenced by the fears and opinions of
laggards.

How to work with the late majority:

Focus on promoting social norms rather than just product benefits: theyll want to hear that
plenty of other conservative folks like themselves think its normal or indispensable
Keep refining the product to increase convenience and reduce costs.
Emphasise the risks of being left behind.
Respond to criticisms from laggards.

Laggards
Meanwhile laggards hold out to the bitter end. They are people who see a high risk in
adopting a particular product or behaviour. Some of them are so worried they stay awake all
night, tossing and turning, thinking up arguments against it. And dont forget they might be
right! Its possible they are not really not laggards at all, but innovators of ideas that are so
new they challenge your paradigms! In the early stages, where you are focusing on early
adopters, you can probably ignore the views of laggards, but when you come to work with
late majorities youll need to address their criticisms, because late majorities share many of
their fears.

How to work with laggards:

8

 Give them high levels of personal control over when, where, how and whether they
do the new behaviour.
Maximise their familiarity with new products or behaviours. Let them see exactly
how other laggards have successfully adopted the innovation.
Each of these adopter personalities is very different. Its vital to know which one you
are addressing at a given time. And no, you usually cant address them all at once. Why?
Because products and behaviours only mature gradually. The exception is when you have
customized quite different products or behaviours for each group. Weight Watchers is an
example. It has a traditional caloriecounting method that suits early adopters, a points
value method that suits early majorities, and a no count system for everyone else.

How big is each segment?

Rogers went as far as assigning precise notional percentages for each segment:
Innovators: 2.5%
Early Adopters: 13.5%
Early majority: 34%
Late majority 34%
Laggards 16% 10
However the 20:60:20 Rule is a good allpurpose rule of thumb.

When designing a change project you need to know one vital fact: the percentage in
a given social system who have already taken up the innovation. That igure tells you
which segment you are addressing next. It gives you great insight into how to design your
project and how to pitch your communications.
Of course, no one is an innovator or a laggard about all new ideas. That would be too
exhausting. In reality, most people are majorities about most things, and only innovators or
laggards about certain specific things. We wouldnt say John is a laggard, wed say John
is an iPhone laggard or George Bush snr is a broccoli laggard

4. The social system

The fourth main element in the diffusion of new ideas is the social system. A social
system is defined as a set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint problem-solving to
accomplish a common goal. The members or units of a social system may be individuals,
informal groups, organizations, and/or subsystems. The social system constitutes a
9

boundary within which an innovation diffuses. How the system's social structure affects
diffusion has been studied. A second area of research involved how norms affect diffusion.
Norms are the established behavior patterns for the members of a social system. A third
area of research has had to do with opinion leadership, the degree to which an individual is
able to influence informally other individuals' attitudes or overt behavior in a desired way with
relative frequency. A change agent is an individual who attempts to influence clients'
innovation-decisions in a direction that is deemed desirable by a change agency.
A final crucial concept in understanding the nature of the diffusion process is the
critical mass, which occurs at the point at which enough individuals have adopted an
innovation that the innovation's further rate of adoption becomes self-sustaining (the shaded
area in Figure 2 depicts the critical mass). The concept of the critical mass implies that
outreach activities should be concentrated on getting the use of the innovation to the point of
critical mass. These efforts should be focused on the early adopters, the 13.5 percent of the
individuals in the system to adopt an innovation after the innovators have introduced the new
idea into the system. Early adopters are often opinion leaders, and serve as role-models for
many other members of the social system. Early adopters are instrumental in getting an
innovation to the point of critical mass, and hence, in the successful diffusion of an
innovation.

The innovation
> Relative advantage is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than
the idea it supersedes. The degree of relative advantage may be measured in economic
terms, but social prestige, convenience, and satisfaction are also important factors. It does
not matter so much if an innovation has a great deal of objective advantage. What does
matter is whether an individual perceives the innovation as advantageous. The greater the
perceived relative advantage of an innovation, the more rapid its rate of adoption will be

> Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent

with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters. An idea that is
incompatible with the values and norms of a social system will not be adopted as rapidly as
an innovation that is compatible. The adoption of an incompatible innovation often requires
the prior adoption of a new value system, which is a relatively slow process.
> Complexity is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to
understand and use. Some innovations are readily understood by most members of a social
system; others are more complicated and will be adopted more slowly. New ideas that are
simpler to understand are adopted more rapidly than innovations that require the adopter to
develop new skills and understandings.
> Trialability is the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a
limited basis. New ideas that can be tried on the installment plan will generally be adopted

10

more quickly than innovations that are not divisible. An innovation that is trialable represents
less uncertainty to the individual who is considering it for adoption, who can learn by doing.
> Observability is the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to
others. The easier it is for individuals to see the results of an innovation, the more likely they
are to adopt it. Such visibility stimulates peer discussion of a new idea, as friends and
neighbors of an adopter often request innovation-evaluation information about it.

Time
> Innovators are the first 2.5 percent of the individuals in a system to adopt an
innovation. Venturesomeness is almost an obsession with innovators. This interest in new
ideas leads them out of a local circle of peer networks and into more cosmopolite social
relationships. Communication patterns and friendships among a clique of innovators are
common, even though the geographical distance between the innovators may be
considerable. Being an innovator has several prerequisites. Control of substantial financial
resources is helpful to absorb the possible loss from an unprofitable innovation. The ability to
understand and apply complex technical knowledge is also needed. The innovator must be
able to cope with a high degree of uncertainty about an innovation at the time of adoption.
While an innovator may not be respected by the other members of a social system, the
innovator plays an important role in the diffusion process: That of launching the new idea in
the system by importing the innovation from outside of the system's boundaries. Thus, the
innovator plays a gatekeeping role in the flow of new ideas into a system.

> Early adopters are the next 13.5 percent of the individuals in a system to adopt an
innovation. Early adopters are a more integrated part of the local system than are
innovators. Whereas innovators are cosmopolites, early adopters are localites. This adopter
category, more than any other, has the greatest degree of opinion leadership in most
systems. Potential adopters look to early adopters for advice and information about the
innovation. This adopter category is generally sought by change agents as a local
missionary for speeding the diffusion process. Because early adopters are not too far ahead
of the average individual in innovativeness, they serve as a role-model for many other
members of a social system. The early adopter is respected by his or her peers, and is the
embodiment of successful, discrete use of new ideas. The early adopter knows that to
continue to earn this esteem of colleagues and to maintain a central position in the
communication networks of the system, he or she must make judicious innovation-decisions.
The early adopter decreases uncertainty about a new idea by adopting it, and then
conveying a subjective evaluation of the innovation to near-peers through interpersonal
networks.
>Early majority is the next 34 percent of the individuals in a system to adopt an
innovation. The early majority adopt new ideas just before the average member of a system.
The early majority interact frequently with their peers, but seldom hold positions of opinion
leadership in a system. The early majority's unique position between the very early and the
relatively late to adopt makes them an important link in the diffusion process. They provide
11

interconnectedness in the system's interpersonal networks. The early majority are one of the
two most numerous adopter categories, making up onethird of the members of a system.
The early majority may deliberate for some time before completely adopting a new idea. "Be
not the first by which the new is tried, nor the last to lay the old aside," fits the thinking of the
early majority. They follow with deliberate willingness in adopting innovations, but seldom
lead.
> Late majority is the next 34 percent of the individuals in a system to adopt an
innovation. The late majority adopt new ideas just after the average member of a system.
Like the early majority, the late majority make up one-third of the members of a system.
Adoption may be the result of increasing network pressures from peers. Innovations are
approached with a skeptical and cautious air, and the late majority do not adopt until most
others in their system have done so. The weight of system norms must definitely favor an
innovation before the late majority are convinced. The pressure of peers is necessary to
motivate adoption. Their relatively scarce resources mean that most of the uncertainty about
a new idea must be removed before the late majority feel that it is safe to adopt.
> Laggards are the last 16 percent of the individuals in a system to adopt an
innovation. They possess almost no opinion leadership. Laggards are the most localite in
their outlook of all adopter categories; many are near isolates in the social networks of their
system. The point of reference for the laggard is the past. Decisions are often made in terms
of what has been done previously. Laggards tend to be suspicious of innovations and
change agents. Resistance to innovations on the part of laggards may be entirely rational
from the laggard's viewpoint, as their resources are limited and they must be certain that a
new idea will not fail before they can adopt

Conceptual Model:

12

Diffusion of innovation model. Source: Rogers (1995)

13

14