The purpose of this study is to understand how change takes place in schools of education by examining three institutions involved in the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate. More specifically, this study will investigate how schools of education and their academic departments adopt, adapt, or reject change efforts and how faculty in a change agent capacity describe and understand their role in this process. The theoretical framework that guided this study is Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation model which examines how innovative ideas are disseminated through an understanding of the innovation, the communication channels through which the innovation is described, the influences of the social system on the process, and the time it takes for a decision to adopt the innovation is made.

The methodology employed in this study was an embedded, multiple-case study. The two units of analysis were the school or academic department and the CPED primary investigator. Data was collected in three forms-- documents, interviews, and observations. Case reports for each institution were generated and a cross-case analysis was conducted. Findings reveal that leadership, internal characteristics, external characteristics and change agent roles and strategies are significant in defining and shaping the change process.