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: 2005307
• 负责人: Julia Williams
• 金额: $ 24.36万
• 依托单位: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
• 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 2023-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2005307&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，我们一再看到要求改变本科教育方式的呼声。然而，尽管有多年的资助和发展，STEM教育的变化并不普遍。这个项目的目的是准备从事革命性工程部门（RED）项目的教师在他们的校园进行学术变革，建立和支持一个RED团队的联盟，并研究学术变革的过程。项目团队，革命性的工程部门参与式行动研究（REDPAR），代表了一种独特的实践-研究伙伴关系，将注重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以及变革策略的扩散联系起来。该项目将通过每月的RED联盟电话会议、年度RED联盟会议、个性化咨询和REDPAR提示表的出版，提供实用的变革课程。此外，该项目还包括开发一个新的RED启动会议，为RED团队提供为期一整天的学术变革介绍，供他们在第一年获得资助。随着RED项目的适应轨道的增加，有机会为正在将现有的学术变革项目适应自己的环境的团队提供具体的开发支持。本研究将透过政治机会理论、社会运动学派和社会网络理论的理论框架，运用溯因定性分析。这些发现将提高我们对环境因素作用的理解，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能力的关键。实践-研究合作将使罗斯-霍尔曼理工学院和华盛顿大学能够就如何实现学术变革做出贡献。虽然对STEM高等教育进行系统性变革的必要性是明确的，但事实证明，这很难以可持续的方式实现。即使一个部门或机构成功地实施了一个变更项目，这些变更也可能不会被其他机构采用，从而导致小规模而非系统性的变更。为了解决这一问题，本研究将探讨情境因素如何影响变革策略的适应。本研究将考察RED团队如何从REDPAR的实践方面以及彼此之间学习，以深入了解上下文因素如何影响变革策略的传播。在研究方面，项目团队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RED团队战略和结果变化的背景因素；2)影响社会运动学校（即“使学术变革发生”课程）所教授的变革策略采用的环境因素；3)高等院校之间具有高度可转移性的学术变革策略类型；(4)影响高校学术变革策略转移的语境因素。我们的研究将增加我们对如何利用社会网络有效地传播变革项目的理解。这个项目将与高等教育界分享RED团队进行的研究成果。通过广泛分享这些结果，以及改变课程，我们看到非red部门复制的巨大潜力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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

Let's Write About Impact!: Creating Persuasive Impact Statements to Disseminate and Propagate RED Research

让我们写下影响吧！：创建有说服力的影响陈述来传播和宣传 RED 研究

• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference
• 作者: Williams, J. M.;Margherio, C.;Andrijcic, E.;Litzler, E.;Mohan, S.
• 通讯作者: Mohan, S.

The RED Teams Start-Up Session: Leveraging Research with Practice for Success in Academic Change

红色团队启动会议：利用研究与实践取得学术变革的成功

• DOI: 10.18260/1-2--35360
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
• 作者: Williams, Julia;Mohan, Sriram;Andrijcic, Eva;Margherio, Cara;Litzler, Elizabeth;Doten-Snitker, Kerice
• 通讯作者: Doten-Snitker, Kerice

Developing a Shared Vision for Change: Moving toward Inclusive Empowerment

• DOI: 10.1007/s11162-020-09594-9
• 发表时间: 2020-05-07
• 期刊: RESEARCH IN HIGHER EDUCATION
• 影响因子: 2.1
• 作者: Doten-Snitker, Kerice;Margherio, Cara;Williams, Julia
• 通讯作者: Williams, Julia