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Three experiments, presented within the framework of Activity Theory, deal with the relationship between adult learners' questions and subsequent comprehension in a tutorial learning setting. Students were first given verbal instructions (acquisition) to a novel card game and then asked to play one hand with the teacher (implementation). In Experiment 1, there was no correlation between number of questions asked during acquisition and comprehension, but questions during implementation were negatively correlated with comprehension. In Experiment 2, learners whose questions were answered during acquisition scored higher than those whose questions were not answered. In Experiment 3, learners whose questions were answered during implementation showed greater gains in comprehension than those whose questions were answered during acquisition. Individual differences in question-asking during implementation but not acquisition were significantly related to comprehension. The results confirm the view that questions answered during knowledge implementation more effectively aid comprehension than those answered during acquisition.

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Organizational change in education, as manifested by school reform, is indeed complex. In this article, we describe our experience with organizational change and analyse it using organizational change theories common in education. An evaluation of the reform initiative yielded unexpected problems related to sustainability. As a result, this article revisits the assumptions from the organizational change literature that guided our change strategy. This reflection led to the discovery of key theoretical ideas that, although less familiar, may have more practical utility for those engaged in organizational change within schools.

The intervention detailed here was aimed at improving the flexible organizational problem solving of a junior high school faculty. It was pointed toward organizational development, not personal change. Even though the emotional reactions of faculty members were considered in designing the training events, our intervention remained fixed on organizational roles and norms and their interrelationships. We hoped to learn whether improved organizational functioning could be produced in a faculty by integrating group training in communication and problem solving with the normal business of the school. We began our intervention just prior to the academic year and returned intermittently until February. Data evaluating the effects of the intervention support the claim that a number of salutary outcomes were at least partly due to the intervention. Movement in favorable directions occurred in a number of concrete, observable organizational changes, in verbally expressed attitudes about the principal and staff meetings, in the kinds of innovations reported, and in the changing organizational norms of the faculty. Strengths and weaknesses of the intervention are discussed.