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）教育社区中，我们看到了一再呼吁改变我们的教育本科生的方式。然而，多年的资金和发展，STEM教育的变化并不普遍。该项目的目的是准备从事革命性工程部门（RED）项目的教职员工，以在其校园内进行学术变革，建立和支持红色团队的财团，并研究学术变革的过程。项目团队彻底改变了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，该伙伴关系将实用的，应用的教师发展联系起来，重点是使学术变革与情境因素对学术变革项目的影响以及变革策略的扩散有关。该项目将通过每月的红色联盟电话，年度红色联盟会议，个性化咨询和Redpar Tip表的发布来提供实用的变革课程。此外，该项目还包括开发新的红色初创企业会议，这是在资助第一年的Red Teams的整天介绍。随着对红色计划的改编轨道的增加，有机会为将现有的学术变革计划调整为自己的环境的团队提供特定的发展支持。该研究将通过政治机会理论，社会运动学校和社会网络理论的理论框架使用绑架性定性分析。这些发现将提高我们对上下文因素的作用的理解，这是提高变革推动者预测哪些变化策略在其本地机构环境中最有效的关键。实践研究的合作将使罗斯 - 霍尔曼技术学院和华盛顿大学能够为如何实现学术变革的实现为全国对话做出贡献。虽然STEM高等教育的系统性变化很明显，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更项目中取得成功，这些变化也可能不受其他机构的采用，从而导致小规模而不是系统性变化。为了解决这个问题，这项研究将研究上下文因素如何影响变化策略的适应。这项研究将研究红色团队如何从Redpar和彼此的实践方面学习，以深入了解上下文因素如何影响变化策略的扩散。在研究方面，项目团队将解决重点介绍情境因素对学术变革项目的作用的新研究领域，包括1）上下文因素，这些因素可能解释了红色团队的战略和成果的变化； 2）影响采用社会运动学校教授的变革策略的上下文因素（即，使学术变革启动课程）； 3）高等教育机构之间高度转移的学术变革策略的类型； 4）影响机构之间学术变革策略转移的背景因素。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。该项目将分享与红色团队向高等教育社区进行的研究结果。通过广泛分享这些结果以及变更课程，我们看到了非红外部门的复制潜力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估评估标准来通过评估来获得支持的。

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.