Institutional and departmental factors influencing faculty adoption of innovative teaching practices.

Abstract

Discussion of undergraduate teaching often lacks an empirical base; few publications focus on faculty receptivity to new teaching practices. This study draws on Bandura's <italic>Social Learning Theory</italic>, Senge's <italic>Learning Organization</italic>, and Stark and Lattuca's <italic> Content</italic>/<italic>Context</italic>/<italic>Form</italic> model to study undergraduate teaching innovations. This study's purpose was to determine what factors are likely to influence faculty in innovation and improvement of undergraduate teaching and learning practices, viewing factors through faculty perceptions of institutional structures, faculty teaching practices, communication with students about teaching, and interrelationships between various behaviors and perceptions. This study employs a cross-sectional survey design. Previous literature predominately studies salary and promotion trends comparing teaching and research output (using large-scale survey methods), or emerging faculty development efforts (using qualitative interview techniques with a few, mostly self-selected subjects). This study overcomes the limitations of both methods, creating a perspective highlighting teaching strengths and deficits through broader and deeper attention to context and its evidence within the data. Factor analysis and multiple regression techniques were employed. A pool of 136 subjects responded from varied institutional types (ranging from Research-Extensive to Associate of Arts institutions). Faculty and administrator interviews and document analysis were used to inform survey creation and describe more completely the teaching environment. The model presented had great explanatory power. Behavioral good practice variables created most of the difference explained by the model; of particular note, <italic>faculty development participation</italic> had strong, statistically significant impacts. The environmental perception variables explained a small portion of change for each dependent variable, having the greatest influence on <italic>shaping the scholarship of teaching </italic>. Two environmental perception variables (<italic>resources for teaching development</italic> and <italic>rewards for teaching</italic>) failed to have statistically significant associations with any dependent variable, which may indicate a lack of faculty awareness of the indirect impacts of such resources (particularly through faculty development opportunities). Key findings emphasize that faculty perceptions of institutional teaching norms are based on departmental norms for teaching. Faculty may choose to pursue teaching innovations if surrounded by supportive networks of other faculty. Faculty responses indicate motivation from an internal drive to gain more knowledge about teaching and learning.