How faculty learn about and implement research-based instructional strategies: The case of Peer Instruction

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Preparing and Supporting University Physics Educators.] The lack of knowledge about how to effectively spread and sustain the use of research-based instructional strategies is currently a significant barrier to the improvement of undergraduate physics education. In this paper we address this lack of knowledge by reporting on an interview study of 35 physics faculty, of varying institution types, who were self-reported users of, former users of, or knowledgeable nonusers of the research-based instructional strategy Peer Instruction. Interview questions included in this analysis focused on the faculty’s experiences, knowledge, and use of Peer Instruction, along with general questions about current and past teaching methods used by the interviewee. The primary findings include the following: (i) Faculty self-reported user status is an unreliable measure of their actual practice. (ii) Faculty generally modify specific instructional strategies and may modify out essential components. (iii) Faculty are often unaware of the essential features of an instructional strategy they claim to know about or use. (iv) Informal social interactions provide a significant communication channel in the dissemination process, in contrast to the formal avenues of workshops, papers, websites, etc., often promoted by change agents, and (v) experience with research-based strategies as a graduate student or through curriculum development work may be highly impactful. These findings indicate that educational transformation can be better facilitated by improving communication with faculty, supporting effective modification by faculty during implementation, and acknowledging and understanding the large impact of informal social interactions as a mode of dissemination.

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Figure 1

Rogers’ stages of the Innovation Decision Process.

Figure 2

Results from a survey of 722 physics faculty indicating percent of faculty who knew about, used, or had discontinued use of Research Based Instructional Strategies (adapted from Ref. [24]).

Figure 3

The number of PI features, out of nine, reportedly used versus the number of interviewees. Interviewees are grouped based on their self-reported survey responses as a PI user, PI former user, or PI nonuser. An arrow indicates the average number of PI features used by each group. Researcher-assigned mixed user category is also shown.

Figure 4

Comparison of self-described user group to researcher-assigned user group.

Figure 5

The percentage of mixed PI users that use, partly use, or do not use each of the PI features based on descriptions of classroom practices in interviews. For some interviewees there was insufficient information to characterize their use of a particular feature; these cases are displayed as “undetermined” in the figure.

Figure 6

Percentage of all interviewees by degree of awareness of each PI feature. Aware equals aware of and reflective about a PI feature, Somewhat Aware equals somewhat aware of and somewhat reflective about a PI feature, Not Aware means explicitly admits that they were not aware of the PI feature, Not Mentioned_means the PI feature did not come up in the interview.

Figure 7

Percentage of faculty reporting to have been exposed to Peer Instruction through each avenue. Hashed bars indicate the percentage of people who recalled that avenue as their first exposure out of the subset of people who could remember their first exposure.