Abstract

The goal of this research study was to develop, implement, and evaluate a school reform design experiment at an alternative high school with low-performing student. Like other school reform efforts, the goal was to achieve transformational change. While few educational reform efforts accomplish that goal, the reform efforts described here did result in transformational change.

The complexity sciences served as a theoretical framework for this design experiment. The goal was to create an environment for change by pulling the school far from equilibrium using a strategy I call “purposeful perturbations” to disrupt the stable state of the school's setting.

The methodology for this study was a design experiment. Data sources for this study included documents and records and audio-recorded interviews of school staff and students. A technique I call Artifact Elicited Response, designed to provide a new dimension to conducting audio-recorded interviews, was used to provide a detailed picture and a description of respondents' social networks within the school and with the broader context of the school.

Analysis of data from documents and records and audio-recorded interviews served two purposes. First, the data was analyzed to investigate two research questions. If an innovative program, with the primary goal of academically preparing low-performing students for rigorous college coursework, is implemented at an alternative high school (1) What structures and patterns of behavior around academic preparation for college emerged as the program evolves? (2) In what ways did these emerging structures and patterns of behavior impact the organizational structure of the school's learning community? The data also served to allow design modifications to be made based on what emerged as a result of a particular purposeful perturbation. In this sense, the experimental design of my research was an iterative process.

The setting for this research study was Gonzago High School (GHS), an alternative school with low-performing students located on the campus of St. Diaz City College. In this research study, an innovative college prep program, Academic Commitment Creates Empowered Successful Students (ACCESS) was created that disrupted GHS's stable state, and the process of implementing this program transformed the school.