Culture, Cognition, and Evaluation of STEM Higher Education Reform: A Mixed-Methods Longitudinal Study

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This study is intended to develop better understanding of why changes in reform-based practices in higher education are slow to develop. The project aims to increase understanding of the relationship between mental models of faculty about effective pedagogy in STEM fields and the extent of consensus about such pedagogy. The research will also examine individual and institutional factors that may influence mental models and consensus and the individual and group level factors that are related to teaching practices and changes in cognitive structure and consensus over time. The study will use cognitive frameworks to explain institutional inertia and will develop methodological approaches to examine several different units of analysis using both cognitive and cultural frameworks. The investigators will create an evaluation design that will be tested in higher education institutions. It will describe the mental models held by individual faculty about effective pedagogy, describe the groups that have consensus on these structures, and describe how individuals and institutions vary in teaching approaches. The study will measure changes in faculty views of pedagogical practices over time by following faculty over time. Data will be gathered from faculty in math, life science and physical sciences over a three year period. The primary source of data will be a survey instrument given in the first and third year. There will also be in-dept interviews with subsets of faculty.