A Study of Curriculum Implementation and School Culture in the Information Age

This study explores curriculum implementation and school culture in the information age, and explores the implied meaning of organizational culture that is proposed by Schein (1992,2004), namely, artifacts, espoused beliefs and values, and underlying assumptions. The study sample composed of two schools. One of the sampled schools is famous for its performance in integrating information technology into teaching and for having an abundance of hardware, software, and so on. Meanwhile, the other school lacked sufficient IT hardware. Participant observations, in-depth interviews, document analysis, and a focus group interview were used to obtain data. The artifacts included in preliminary results were computers and IT equipment, instructional websites, and computer arrangement in terms of teacher’s instructional perspective. The level of espoused beliefs and values includes collaboration and sharing experience, and the transformation of instructional paradigm (from teacher-center instruction to student-center instruction). Finally, the level of underlying assumptions includes space, time and enhancing the instructional effectiveness of IT.