Research on Organizational Change in a National Network of Informal Science Education Institutions

This study researched whether and how affiliation with the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net) led to change in informal science education organizations’ (ISEs) practices. The NISE Net provided an opportunity to look at how participation in a large but loosely-structured network of museums, science centers, educators, and scientists can influence museums to experience organizational change and adopt new practices.

By conducting qualitative case studies of a few selected partners, this research aimed to understand the conditions that facilitate or impede the influence of NISE Net-related practices within its network of partner organizations. Site visits to six highly involved NISE Net museums, separated by 18-20 months, allowed us to see changes that had a short-lived lifespan as well as those that looked as if they would be sustained over a longer period of time. By collecting data through a variety of methods—including interviews with staff members, volunteers, and scientist partners as well as onsite observations of meetings and programs—this study gained a rich sense of how each site functioned as a community, how each received, interpreted, and used information from NISE Net, and how this work changed over time.

The conceptual framework guiding this research was based on the notion of communities of practice, developed by Etienne Wenger (1998a; Lave & Wenger, 1991). We considered NISE Net and each of the participating museums to be a distinct community of practice because each had its own set of goals that the entire staff was working towards (i.e. joint enterprise), similar practices and tasks (i.e. mutual engagement), and a common pool of resources (i.e. shared repertoire). This study also considered how information from the Network flowed to and within the museums and whether there was alignment of goals between the six museums and NISE Net. This framing was important for understanding the changes that were occurring.

Appendix includes interview protocol.