Abstract
This thesis has two themes: (1) the support of academic staff development through materials and (2) the creation and testing of two models, a macromodel and a micromodel, for the behaviour of individuals as they progress towards adoption or rejection of an innovation. The macromodel models an individual's overall innovatory behaviour, and the micromodel models his behaviour on any of the tasks associated with the adoption/rejection process. With regard to (1) the thesis describes investigations on the basis of which a scheme was designed and implemented to support academic staff development through materials: A working group of the Society for Research into Higher Education created and field-trialled the materials, which were subsequently published by the Society. With regard to (2) the models link the works of others. The visual and mathematical aspects of the models are based on Catastrophe Theory, which is due to Thom. The innovation stages, which are described by the macromodel derive from the work of Rogers. The micromodel is based on the work on motivation by Herzberg. Since the models are visual, the innovatory behaviour of the individual can be assessed at a glance. The models also have features which give insights and add to the understanding of the adoption/rejection process. The behaviours of the authors within the working group provided the data for testing the models.