Barriers to innovation?

Image from Pxhere

In March I posted a survey question as a part of my ongoing research into the adoption of new technologies in learning. The background for this question was a statement I made during a keynote discussion session at Learning Technologies in London in January. I was asked about innovation in organisations. From my experience working in all sectors of education and training, I claimed that the most likely sector to innovate with new learning technologies would be primary education. This would be followed closely by Learning and Development in organisations. Secondary schools and universities/colleges would lag behind, largely because high stakes assessment was an important consideration in these sectors.

There are clearly more factors to consider than these as barriers to the adoption of new ideas and innovation, but this is a good start. The survey question was really a way to confirm whether or not my hypothesis was sound. As you can see from the findings of a small sample of just 314 votes, the results are aligned to my claim. Whether this small sample is representative of the learning community in all sectors is open to discussion. But the result is interesting none the less.

What do you think might be other determining factors, or barriers to innovation and uptake of new technologies for learning? I would love to hear your views, which you're invited to post in the comments box below.

Barriers to innovation? by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.