Early Adopters

Early adopters are those persons who are predisposed to adopt innovations that seem likely to further their interests—but are unlikely to create or actively seek them. The three main demographic groupings discussed in change agency are innovators and risk takers, early adopters, and late adopters. Any learning technology innovation will find its intended adopters distributed along this spectrum, and the change literature offers significant insights concerning their proportion among the population, their dominant concerns at each stage of implementation, how change agents might gain their support, and how this will influence different stakeholder groups, adoption decisions, and adaptation and use of the innovation to promote desired learning outcomes. This entry first discusses how use of the term early adopters has evolved and the characteristics associated ...