Measuring Educators’ Perceived Benefits of Participation in Educational Improvement Networks

Networked improvement communities (NICs) aim to build capacity for school-based educators to work collaboratively as active agents of problem solving and change. Yet, the benefits accrued to educators from participating in improvement networks have been sparsely researched. Using survey responses from the members of 34 improvement networks, we conceptualize and construct a measure of participatory benefits for school-based educators in improvement networks. This measure provides an indicator of participants’ commitment and motivation to engage in collaborative local problem solving and to sustain network membership. We hypothesize that such commitment and motivation are necessary conditions for precipitating changes in schooling practices that will ultimately lead to progress toward network improvement aims (e.g., improved student outcomes). Our analyses provide evidence that our measure of members’ participatory benefits can reliably distinguish among individuals both within and between networks. We identify distinct individual and network characteristics that are associated with variations in member reports of their participatory benefits.