Evaluation and Monitoring: Problematic Roles in Studying Innovation

In Ticino, the Italian speaking canton of Switzerland, in past years a reform of the secondary school system has been implemented. This reform originates from some preliminary reflection started during the ‘90ies. During the academic year 2004/2005 started the first visible transformation in school. Using a multi-focus research design a study on this process of change has been conducted during the years 2006 - 2012. This project has several aims: define a theoretical framework to study future innovations; give some feedback to stakeholders; implement a monitoring process. Different sources of information have been used: public documents; interviews to stakeholders; four case studies and data from a questionnaire administered to the teachers. This paper is mainly devoted to explore the theoretical implication and to make a general reflection on evaluation and monitoring processes. This research process has been used to reflect on the different role of researchers in evaluation and monitoring processes. The data collected make possible to validate and up-date the initial theoretical framework based mainly on the work of Fullan (1993, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003) and Huberman & Miles (1984), to demonstrate that in an organizational change the energy spent in the consolidation phase need to be proportional to the depth of the changes.