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

这项研究旨在更好地理解为什么以改革为基础的高等教育实践的变化发展缓慢。该项目旨在增加对STEM领域中教师关于有效教育学的心理模型与对这种教育学的共识程度之间的关系的理解。这项研究还将考察可能影响心理模型和共识的个人和制度因素，以及与教学实践和认知结构和共识随时间变化有关的个人和群体层面的因素。这项研究将使用认知框架来解释机构惰性，并将开发方法论方法，使用认知框架和文化框架来检查几个不同的分析单位。调查人员将创建一个评估设计，并在高等教育机构中进行测试。它将描述个人教员对有效教学的心理模型，描述对这些结构有共识的群体，并描述个人和机构在教学方法上的差异。这项研究将通过跟踪教师随着时间的推移来衡量教师对教学实践的看法随着时间的变化。数据将从数学、生命科学和物理科学的教职员工那里收集，为期三年。数据的主要来源将是第一年和第三年提供的调查工具。还将对部分教职员工进行深入访谈。

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.