| 英文摘要 |
The 1994 Teacher Education Act marked the start of a more diversified system of teacher training in Taiwan. Subsequently, the number of teacher education providers increased substantially; consequently, the normal universities and colleges, which had been the dominant organizations participating in teacher preparation in Taiwan, were pressured to adapt. To understand how teacher colleges have adjusted to the reform of the teacher education system, this study conducted a textual analysis of relevant documents and policies released during 1994-2014 and interviewed members of a selected teacher college. Sociological institutionalism was utilized as a theoretical framework to analyze the institutional changes and organizational adaptations. The research findings showed that at the earlier stage of the teacher education reform, the prevailing trend was to focus on changing the institutional environment, and the case study college complied with this orientation in both letter and spirit to maintain its organizational legitimacy. At the later stage, however, the teacher education reform started incorporating additional changes related to the technical environment, and this caused the case study teachers college to increase its focus on technical efficiency to strengthen its organizational competitiveness. The experience of the case study college when choosing among diverse mechanisms (i.e., coercive, mimetic, and normative) to adapt to institutional change revealed that the organization in question exhibited a loosely coupled organizational structure. This paper offers reflections on the institutional reform of teacher education as well as the transformation of the case study teachers college. |
