The Implications of Appreciative Inquiry for School Reform

Appreciative inquiry (AI) was a theory of organizational change proposed by David Copperrider’s research in Case Western Reserve University and developed from the field of organizational development. It attracted much attention on account of its successful application in organizational innovation (Coghlan， Preskill， & Catsambas， 2003). Copperrider and his teacher turned the perspective of organization from the traditional negative one into the positive one through AI (Kelly， 2010). AI promoted past success to form a vision of future change (Kozik， Cooney， Vinciguerra， Gradel， & Black， 2009; Lehner & Hight， 2006). It had been developed academically or practically in school reform (Evans， Thornton， & Usinger， 2012; Ryan， Soven， Smither， Sullivan， & Vanbuskirk， 2010; Willoughby & Tosey， 2007). In order to understand how AI was applied in school reform， this paper would thus probe into the theoretical perspective on AI， including meaning， principles， and model， and explore its practice in school reform. The researcher conducted a critical review of AI pertaining to school reform to fulfill the research purpose.