Design and Development: Understanding the Contextual Factors that Impact Academic Change Through a Practice-Research Collaboration Supporting the NSF RED Projects

设计和开发：通过支持 NSF RED 项目的实践研究合作了解影响学术变革的背景因素

• 批准号: 2005244
• 负责人: Elizabeth Litzler
• 金额: $ 37.65万
• 依托单位: University of Washington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-07-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2005244&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Design; Development; Understanding; Contextual; Factors

Within the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education community, we have seen repeated calls for changing the way we educate undergraduate students. And yet, despite many years of funding and development, change in STEM education is not pervasive. The purpose of this project is to prepare faculty engaged in Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) projects to make academic change on their campuses, to build and support a consortium of RED teams, and to study the process of academic change. The project team, Revolutionizing Engineering Departments Participatory Action Research (REDPAR), represents a unique practice-research partnership that links practical, applied faculty development focused on making academic change with research on the impact of contextual factors on academic change projects and the diffusion of change tactics. The project will provide a practical changemaking curriculum deployed through monthly RED Consortium calls, the annual RED Consortium Meeting, individualized consulting, and the publication of REDPAR Tip Sheets. In addition, the project includes the development of a new RED Start Up Session, a full-day introduction to academic changemaking for RED teams in their first year of funding. With the addition of the Adaptation track to the RED Program, there is an opportunity to provide specific development support to teams that are adapting existing academic change programs to their own contexts. The research will use abductive qualitative analysis through the theoretical frameworks of political opportunity theory, social movement schools, and social network theory. These findings will improve our understanding of the role of contextual factors, a key to improving change agents’ ability to predict which change tactics are likely to be most effective within their local institutional environment. The practice-research collaboration will enable both Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and the University of Washington to contribute to the national conversation on how to make academic change happen.While the need for systemic change in STEM higher education is clear, it has also proven difficult to achieve in a sustainable manner. Even when one department or institution has success with a change project, these changes might not be adopted by other institutions, resulting in small-scale rather than systemic changes. In order to address this problem, this research will examine how contextual factors influence the adaptation of change strategies. This research will examine how the RED teams learn from both the practice side of REDPAR as well as each other, to gain insight into how contextual factors influence the diffusion of change tactics. With regard to research, the project team will tackle new research areas that focus on the role of contextual factors on academic change projects, including 1) contextual factors that may explain variations in strategy and outcomes across the RED teams; 2) contextual factors that influence the adoption of change tactics taught by a social movement school (i.e., the Making Academic Change Happen curriculum); 3) the types of academic change tactics that are highly transferable between higher education institutions; and 4) the contextual factors that impact the transfer of academic change tactics between institutions. Our research will increase our understanding of how to leverage social networks to propagate change projects effectively. This project will share results from the research conducted with RED teams to the higher education community. By broadly sharing these results, as well as the change curriculum, we see high potential for replication by non-RED departments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)教育界，我们看到了反复呼吁改变我们教育本科生的方式。然而，尽管有多年的资金和发展，STEM教育的变化并不普遍。这个项目的目的是培养从事革命化工程系(RED)项目的教员在他们的校园里进行学术变革，建立和支持RED团队联盟，并研究学术变革的过程。项目团队，革命化工程系参与性行动研究(REDPAR)，代表了一个独特的实践-研究伙伴关系，将注重进行学术变革的实际应用教师发展与研究背景因素对学术变革项目的影响和变革策略的传播联系在一起。该项目将通过每月召开的RED联盟电话会议、年度RED联盟会议、个性化咨询和出版REDPAR提示表来提供实践的变革课程。此外，该项目包括开发一个新的RED启动会议，为RED团队在资助的第一年提供全天的学术变革介绍。随着RED计划增加适应轨道，有机会为正在调整现有学术变化计划以适应其自身背景的团队提供具体的发展支持。本研究将通过政治机会理论、社会运动学派和社会网络理论的理论框架，采用溯因定性分析。这些发现将提高我们对背景因素作用的理解，这是提高变革推动者预测哪些变革策略在其当地制度环境中可能最有效的关键。实践-研究合作将使罗斯-胡尔曼理工学院和华盛顿大学都能够为如何实现学术变革的全国性对话做出贡献。尽管STEM高等教育需要系统性变革是显而易见的，但事实证明，它也很难以可持续的方式实现。即使一个部门或机构在变革项目上取得了成功，这些变革也可能不会被其他机构采用，从而导致小规模的变革，而不是系统性的变革。为了解决这一问题，本研究将考察语境因素如何影响变革策略的适应。本研究将研究RED团队如何从REDPAR的实践方面以及彼此中学习，以深入了解上下文因素如何影响变化策略的传播。在研究方面，项目组将处理新的研究领域，重点关注背景因素在学术变革项目中的作用，包括1)可能解释红色团队之间策略和结果差异的背景因素；2)影响采用社会运动学校教授的变革策略的背景因素(即，使学术变革发生课程)；3)在高等教育机构之间高度可移植的学术变革策略的类型；以及4)影响学术变革策略在院校之间转移的背景因素。我们的研究将增加我们对如何利用社交网络有效传播变革项目的理解。该项目将与RED团队一起向高等教育界分享研究成果。通过广泛分享这些结果以及变化的课程，我们看到了非红色部门复制的高潜力。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Unified Voice and Group Agency: Developing Teams to Transform Engineering Education

统一语音和团体代理：发展团队以转变工程教育

• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
• 作者: Margherio, C.

Mobilizing Resources in a Community of Practice: How Academic Change Agents Work Toward Equity in their Change Projects

在实践社区中调动资源：学术变革推动者如何在其变革项目中实现公平

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education
• 作者: Güler, S.;Litzler, E.;Margherio, C.;Williams, J.M.;Andrijcic, E.;Mohan, S.
• 通讯作者: Mohan, S.

Leadership Succession in the National Science Foundation Revolutionizing Engineering Departments Projects

国家科学基金会革命性工程部门项目的领导继任

• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
• 作者: Williams, J.;Andrijcic, E.;Margherio, C.;Litzler, E.;Mohan, S.;Güler, S.
• 通讯作者: Güler, S.

Examining the Community of Practice in the NSF RED Program.

检查 NSF RED 计划中的实践社区。

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: 2023 American Society for Engineering Education Conference & Exposition
• 作者: Williams, J.M.;Andrijcic, E.;Mohan, S.;Litzler, E.;Güler, S.
• 通讯作者: Güler, S.