Teacher Agency and Innovation in Tanzania: Research Design Brief

Abstract

Teacher Agency and Innovation in Tanzania (TAIT) is a collaborative research project conducted by researchers from the University of Glasgow and the University of Dar es Salaam. The project explores how teacher agency and innovation are understood, enabled, constrained, and enacted in practice in Tanzanian secondary schools. This research brief highlights the value of a participatory mixed methods approach for exploring teacher agency and innovation in context. The exploratory study (2024–2026) was conducted across three districts in Tanzania and involved 410 participants, including teachers, school leaders, teacher educators, and local education officers. Data were collected through participatory workshops, online teacher reflection groups, a survey, and a participatory validation symposium. The design enabled the team to develop and implement a new teacher agency survey grounded in the perceptions and experiences of Tanzanian educators. The survey captured broader patterns in teachers’ self-reported agency, while qualitative and participatory methods provided deeper insights into lived experiences, contextual meanings, and the relationships between agency and innovation.