Rogers’ categories

Thoughts and answers to questions about Rogers’ five adopter types, based on his Diffusion of Innovations.

Q1 Do Rogers’ categories correspond with your experience of people’s attitudes to innovation?

Yes to some extent I can related to this categorisation. However I would not have emphasised the technology and if people are comfortable (or not) with the tools as much as I would have emphasised the pedagogical outcomes and the learning and teaching objectives for the course the tools are being related to…..


Q2 How far can you apply his model to a context you know – a current or past place of work, or a less formal situation? For example, can you link it to an innovation in elearning? You may have one in mind but, if not, how about one of these …

Yes as noted I think it fits to some extent. But how this would fall would as noted to a large extent depend on who the students are and what the course is trying to achieve. I understand the initial innovators would need to have goof IT knowledge to know what was possible in terms of the technology, or what may be possible. But to be an early adopter or an early majority depends on a number of factors including the amount of prior knowledge the person has to build on. Sometimes things can be skipped, for example there is no need to have used synchronous discussion to use Skype is there?

One of the case studies (University of Derby, MSc in Strategic Management in Africa), illustrates the fact that one could be an innovator but other circumstances outside the control of the provider and learner prevent any adoption no matter what stage. There would be I think an argument to revert to email conversations as a means of innovation in this instance… It is not only the tool, it is also the will of the community to make the learning happen.


Q3 Do you think that, deep down, Rogers’ model assumes that innovation is a ‘Good Thing’? And that being an ‘innovator’ or ‘early adopter’ – the inverted commas are there in case you reject those categories – is the only respectable thing to be?

Yes, I would say I do get the impression from the text that innovation is a good thing if only because the last category (and that in itself - listing in this way implies a certain reverence for the top), is classed as the ‘laggards’…. I think this is slightly arrogant and misses the wider point of pedagogy. It puts too much emphasis on tools and not enough on why we are using them and what they are for. Right tool right place, as tools are changing all the time it is important to keep an open mind on what is appropriate for what as it is impossible to keep abreast of it all as a teacher. This is not to say we should stop but it is to say one should be mindful of what they are for, what the externalities are of their use and what their cost is (money, time etc) in relation to what is achieved.