A Study of the Feasibility of Marketing Programming for Educational R & D Products

This document argues the need for improved procedures for planning educational change. Specifically, it argues for a marketing approach which involves starting with the real needs of a particular population and planning a coordinated set of products and programs to serve those needs. The authors focus on using marketing concepts and techniques to help in situations where educational products already exist. The publication first discusses past beliefs about the approaches to educational change and how these beliefs have led to confidence in the potential usefulness of a marketing approach. Secondly, it reports the results of empirical work done to apply one such marketing concept to educational change--that of market segmentation. The application of the market segmentation concept to educational dissemination and utilization assumes that the market for educational innovations is heterogeneous, and further, that variables can be found which meaningfully divide the market into homogeneous subgroups which are expected to respond differently to marketing efforts. A discrepancy model is divided for use as a basis for market segmentation and as a guide for market selection and marketing strategy development. (Author/DN)