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The focus of this study was teachers as they were asked to implement educational innovations suggested by nationally instituted educational policy. This study applied empirical data to a structural equation model of Japanese EFL teachers' (N = 876) perceptions of various national-, school-, and classroom-level influences that act on their instruction. Teachers' perceptions of these influences were then related to their approval of classroom activities associated with communicative language teaching. The article highlights the position recent educational policies seemed to take in teachers' minds and the way teachers subsumed the policy into the preexisting educational culture, which seemed to focus on preparing students for form-focused university entrance exams. Through structural equation modeling, the relationships among the many influences teachers perceived on their instruction are demonstrated. The resulting visual image suggests not only impediments to an educational innovation but also routes for potential change.
Greta Gorsuch (Sat,) studied this question.