Abstract Book of the 10th World Conference on Future of Education
Year: 2026
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Bulgarian teachers’ conceptions of school innovations
Nadezhda Angelova Kaloyanova
ABSTRACT:
The introduction of school innovations is a significant priority of Bulgarian educational policies, with the adopted model being bottom-up. This trend places the teacher at the center of the school innovation process. In educational practice, however, there is often a reduction of innovation to a new methodological approach, without taking into account its systematic pedagogical and organizational dimension. In addition, research proves that teachers do not have the necessary preparation or a sustainable attitude to introduce innovations into their daily activities and even often reject them. The present study focuses on the anchored conceptions of Bulgarian teachers on introducing innovations into routine educational practice. The research methodology is two-component. In the first part, an empirical model of teacher attitudes was built based on surveys conducted periodically between 2023 and 2025, that covered 3521 Bulgarian school teachers. The research instruments included structured questionnaires, ratings and rank scales. The data was processed with statistical procedures to assess reliability and establish significant correlations between the variables. A quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the results obtained was conducted. Based on the established model, in the period 2025 – 2026, 252 teachers were gradually surveyed using the focus group method, through which their in-depth conceptions about school innovations were derived. The results obtained contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between teachers’ concepts of innovation and the actual implementation of changes in school practice and offer guidelines for the development of policies for the preparation and professional development of teachers in a national context.
Keywords: schoolteachers; educational innovation; teachers’ attitudes; educational policies; professional development