TALIS multilevel study links teacher and school factors to innovativeness

Collaborative school culture was the strongest school-level factor associated with collective teacher innovativeness in a multilevel analysis of 2018 TALIS survey data from the OECD. At the teacher level, professional preparedness, self-efficacy and teaching autonomy were significant predictors of the team-level propensity to seek, develop and implement new pedagogical practices.

Researchers Min An and Xiaofei Yu used a two-level hierarchical linear model to assess how teacher- and school-level characteristics related to collective teacher innovativeness. Their observational analysis grouped individual teachers within schools, allowing the researchers to examine the influence of factors occurring at both levels. Because the study analyzed survey data, its results identify statistical associations and do not establish that changing any of the reported characteristics would cause collective innovativeness to increase.

At the teacher level, higher professional preparedness, greater self-efficacy and more teaching autonomy were associated with stronger collective teacher innovativeness. The researchers also reported lower levels among male teachers, permanently employed teachers and highly educated teachers. The supplied findings do not include effect sizes, confidence intervals or the sizes of the analyzed samples, so the practical magnitude of these relationships cannot be evaluated from the reported results. They also do not explain why the demographic and employment differences appeared.

At the school level, collaborative culture emerged as the strongest predictor of collective teacher innovativeness. Public schools were also associated with lower levels of the outcome. The abstract does not report the size of either school-level association or provide evidence about the mechanisms underlying the public-school difference. Overall, the study connects collective teacher innovativeness with teachers’ professional preparedness, self-efficacy and autonomy, alongside a collaborative culture at the school level. Its authors concluded that these factors are important for shaping collective teacher innovativeness, an outcome they described as the team-level propensity perceived by teachers to seek, develop and implement new pedagogical practices.

Subject of Research: Teacher- and school-level factors associated with collective teacher innovativeness in TALIS data

Article Title: Individual and school determinants of collective teacher innovativeness: a multilevel analysis

Article References: An, M., & Yu, X. (2026). Individual and school determinants of collective teacher innovativeness: a multilevel analysis. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05552-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05552-9

Keywords: collective teacher innovativeness, TALIS, hierarchical linear models, school culture, teacher self-efficacy, professional preparedness, teaching autonomy, educational research, Individual, school, determinants, collective