Reexamining the stages of concern questionnaire: A test of alternative models

Many studies have applied Hall's (1977) Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ) to measure teachers' concerns about educational innovations, but there is a lack of empirical information about the reliability, construct validity, and simplex structure of SoCQ data. The results of a comparative analysis of 4 alternative Stages of Concern models are reported. Analyses of data from 1,622 teachers indicated that none of the models provided a good fit to the real data. Hall's original 35-item, 7-stage SoCQ was refined to form a 22-item, 5-stage SoCQ. However, the first stage of concerns had relatively little influence on the second stage. Implications for future research are discussed.