Collaborative Research: Uncovering Biology Department Cultural Commitments to Graduate Student Teaching Professional Development

美国需要强大的科学劳动力，但只有大约50%的本科生在生物学学位完成该专业。学生离开生物学专业的主要原因之一是他们认为入门课程的教学质量很差。在许多情况下，研究生是记录的导师，特别是讨论和实验部分。尽管研究生发挥着重要的教学作用，但研究生课程中缺乏教学专业发展的记录。这个试点项目将使用与专家的共识调查，以确定与研究生教师培训相关的生物学领域的部门文化方面。该试点项目的结果将成为未来研究的基础，并支持研究生更高质量的培训和教学。本研究将利用德尔菲方法，以确定共识方面的生物部门的文化承诺与支持或挑战研究生教学专业发展。中心的研究问题是：什么是共识生物部门的价值观和信念，专家与部门的支持或阻力教学专业发展？多轮的德尔菲研究将使项目小组能够从生物系聘请40名专家。该项目旨在迭代生成文化承诺列表，并根据对教学专业发展的重要性对列表进行排名。由此产生的分析将被项目团队用来开发和提出一个改变理论，以提高生物系研究生教学专业发展的质量。该项目由NSF的EDU核心研究（ECR）计划支持。ECR计划强调基础STEM教育研究，产生该领域的基础知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响力审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The United States needs a strong scientific workforce, yet only about 50% of undergraduate students seeking a degree in Biology complete that major. One of the main reasons students leave the Biology major is their perception that instruction in introductory courses is of poor quality. In many cases, graduate students are the instructors of record, especially for discussion and laboratory sections. Despite the significant instructional role that graduate students play, there is a documented lack of teaching professional development in graduate programs. This pilot project will use consensus surveys with experts to identify aspects of departmental cultures in biology fields associated with graduate student teacher training. Findings from this pilot project will be the basis for future research and for supporting higher quality training of and teaching by graduate students. This study will utilize a Delphi methodology to identify consensus aspects of biology departmental cultural commitments associated with support for or challenges to graduate student teaching professional development. The central research question is: What are the consensus biology departmental values and beliefs that experts associate with departmental support for or resistance to teaching professional development? The multi-round, Delphi study will enable the project team to engage a sample of 40 experts from biology departments. The project is designed to iteratively generate a list of cultural commitments and rank the list in terms of importance to teaching professional development. The resulting analysis will be used by the project team to develop and propose a change theory for improving the quality of graduate student teaching professional development in biology departments. This project is supported by NSF’s EDU Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad, and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.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.