Instituting a standards-based K--12 science curriculum supplement program at the National Institutes of Health: A case study
Research on student achievement indicates the U.S. K-12 education system is not adequately preparing American students to compete in the 21st century global economy in the areas of science and mathematics. Congress has asked the scientific entities of the federal government to help increase K-12 science learning by creating standards-based learning tools for science classrooms as part of a "voluntary curriculum.". One problem facing federal entities, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the need to create science-learning tools that conform to the National Science Education Standards (NSES) for curriculum materials and, therefore, are standards-based and applicable to the K-12 curriculum. This case study sought to better understand the change process at one federal agency as it went from producing K-12 learning tools that were educational in nature to a program that produced K-12 standards-based learning tools: the NIH Science Curriculum Supplement Program (NIH SCSP). The NIH SCSP was studied to gain insight into how this change in educational approach occurred, what factors enabled or inhibited the change process, and what the long-term benefits of the NIH SCSP are to the NIH. Kurt Lewin's three-step theory of change guided data gathering and data analysis. Semi-structured interviews and programmatic document review served as the major data gathering sources. Details describing the process of organizational change at the NIH were revealed during analysis of these data following the coding of interview transcripts and written record documents. The study found the process of change at the NIH proceeded in a manner generally predicted by the Lewinian change model. Enablers to the change were cost-sharing with individual institutes, support of senior leadership, and crediting the role of individual institutes prominently in each supplement. The cost of creating a supplement was reported as the single inhibitor to the program. This case study yielded a detailed description of the process of change at this federal institution that may offer valuable insights to similar federal organizations confronting educational change. The study may also contribute to the existing body of knowledge regarding the process of organizational change in a federal setting.