The study reported here was designed to substantiate the findings of previous research on the use of inquiry-based laboratory activities in introductory college physics courses. The authors sought to determine whether limited use of inquiry activities as a supplement to a traditional lecture and demonstration curriculum would improve student achievement in introductory classes for preservice teachers and general education students. Achievement was measured by responses to problems designed to test conceptual understanding as well as overall course grades. We analyzed the effect on selected student outcome measures in a preliminary study in which some students engaged in inquiry activities and others did not, and interviewed students about their perceptions of the inquiry activities. In the preliminary study, preservice elementary teachers and female students showed significantly higher achievement after engaging such activities, but only on exam questions relating directly to the material covered in the exercises. In a second study we used a common exam problem to compare the performance of students who had engaged in a revised version of the inquiry activities with the performance of students in algebra and calculus-based classes. The students who had engaged in inquiry investigations significantly outperformed the other students.
As calls for pedagogical transformation of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction intensify, the pace of change remains slow. The literature shows that research-based instructional strategies transfer only sporadically into STEM instructional practice. Difficulties associated with implementation and sustainment of instructional change may appear daunting-if not insurmountable-to many STEM change agents and teaching faculty. Subsequently, the path towards systematic and lasting pedagogical transformation in post-secondary STEM stands largely uncharted.To understand how challenges faced by STEM educators engaged in pedagogical change may be overcome, this paper uses qualitative inquiry to explore an emergent process of teacher change. The change process took place during implementation of an online innovation within an undergraduate engineering calculus course taught via synchronous broadcast at a mid-size, Western, public university. The instructional innovation required first year calculus students to participate in an asynchronous, online discussion forum for graded credit. Data, consisting of written reflections and transcribed interviews, were gathered from three STEM faculty members who each played a different role in the change process: a mathematics instructor implementing the online forum within his course; an engineering faculty peer-mentor assisting with the implementation of the online forum; and a STEM education faculty member evaluating the implementation and observing the process of change. Situated within the interpretive research paradigm, this study uses exploratory thematic analysis of narrative data to understand the ways in which contextual factors may influence pedagogical change. Introduction Amid increasing calls for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pedagogical transformation 1, 24 and growing concerns over the lack of transfer of research-based instructional strategies to STEM 23, 24 classrooms, several scholars 2,3,12 advocate for a deeper understanding of instructional change within STEM disciplines. Henderson et al. 12 summarized the situation saying, "the state of change strategies and the study of changes strategies are weak and …research communities that study and enact change are largely isolated from one-another" (p. 1). Borrego and Henderson 3 suggested that efforts toward pedagogical change in STEM remain unsystematic and that STEM fields have not, as yet, developed an understanding of how and when to implement the variety of change approaches now documented within the research literature (pp. 222-223). Therefore, the current state of the instructional change literature in STEM indicates a need for more exploratory work and provides impetus for this study.
Background to the Study
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