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Perceived Outcomes Associated with Engagement in and Design of Faculty Communities of Practice Focused on STEM Reform

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Abstract

This study examines how involvement in four undergraduate faculty communities of practice is associated with faculty perceiving they improved in individual practices related to STEM reform. It is informed by the communities of practice and faculty change literature and utilizes data gathered through a survey of community members (n = 2503). The findings reveal engagement experiences and aspects of community design associated with three outcomes—learning and improving practice, developing skills for leadership and change, and networking. These findings contribute to recommendations for designing future STEM reform initiatives.

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Notes

  1. In another paper, we examine how involvement in these communities is associated with broader organizational outcomes like departmental and institutional change (see Authors).

  2. While Austin (2011) and Blackburn and Lawrence (1995) address motivation of faculty, these motivation factors for change are not necessarily limited to higher education (e.g., Vroom 1964; Stipek 2002).

  3. For the sake of space, we direct readers to a paper we wrote fully describing these communities of transformation (see Authors).

  4. While no specific cut-off criteria were generated for identifying communities with long enough histories, we generally sought communities who had been awarded grant funds for multiple cycles and had existed long enough for some sort of generativity of leadership, meaning that different “generations” of leaders had emerged, even if the primary leaders remained constant.

  5. The administrative staff of the four reform communities provided us with contact information for each individual on their e-mail lists in order to send personalized invitations and track response. All four organizations acknowledged the existence of out-of-date contact information for participants and individuals who do not identify as faculty (i.e., members of other organizations) on their contact lists. Additionally, one community has a high school arm of their initiative, and they were unable to separate those addresses from the larger list. So while the population in the study is approximately 18,000, there is no way for us to know the true population size.

  6. A large proportion of our initial respondents responded to the survey but only completed a small portion of questions. The items specifically pertaining to outcomes from involvement (our dependent variables) were at the end of the survey instrument, and very few of the individuals who did not complete the entire survey answered any questions pertaining to outcomes. Therefore, we limited analyses to those individuals who made it to the end of the survey instrument.

  7. We utilize Promax rotation, which assumes that the factors are correlated, as opposed to an orthogonal rotation, such as Varimax, which assumes the factors are uncorrelated (Gorsuch 1983).

  8. These three scales represent participants’ perceptions of what they gained through involvement in these communities. This is important to note because there is no concrete way to know if participants did in fact change, for example, their teaching after becoming involved with the CoPs or if they engaged in increased leadership on their campuses. Rather, we interpret these scales to represent skill development and even increased efficacy in these different areas related to faculty behavior related to STEM reform.

  9. For more detailed work on faculty agency, we direct readers to Campbell and O’Meara (2014), Gonzales (2012, 2014), O’Meara et al. (2011), and O’Meara (2015).

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. (NSF DUE-1226242).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, Seattle, USA

    Sean Gehrke

  2. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

    Adrianna Kezar

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  1. Sean Gehrke
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Correspondence to Sean Gehrke.

Appendix

Appendix

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Table 3 Descriptive statistics for other variables in study
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Gehrke, S., Kezar, A. Perceived Outcomes Associated with Engagement in and Design of Faculty Communities of Practice Focused on STEM Reform. Res High Educ 60, 844–869 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-018-9534-y

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