Changing the culture: Documenting shifts in a department's norms around data use

Abstract

Cultural change that requires revision of taken-for-granted assumptions is necessitated to enact programmatic changes. However, such cultural change processes are challenging and time-consuming and therefore require continued support and resources. Data sensemaking is one important aspect of culture that local stakeholders often overlook. In this project, we study the change process enacted by local Departmental Action Teams (DATs) resulting from physics faculty members' participation in the Departmental Leadership Action Institutes (DALIs). This study followed two faculty change leaders from one physics program in their journey in DALI and their DAT over a year. This paper discusses preliminary interview results that help us understand how the DAT's microculture is situated within the dominant departmental culture, focused on the facet of data use. For example, we found that past data collection efforts were a primary responsibility of a single person and rarely became the focus of joint attention. Within the DAT, in contrast, a broad set of stakeholders engaged in joint data collection and sensemaking that informed decision making and led to revising initial assumptions about what programmatic changes might be needed in order to reach their goal.

Considering the Departmental Action Leadership Institute as a Community of Transformation: What�s highlighted and what�s missed?

“…In our previous research, we have seen how change leaders feel more prepared and confident in their ability to lead change after DALI [6]. In case studies of the DALI-supported DATs, we have seen that the change leaders have facilitated teams that take a collective approach to data collection and sensemaking [29]. Change leaders have come to see students as partners in change work and prioritize their perspectives to better understand the challenges their departments face [30].…”

“…In interviews, change leaders identify many aspects of the DALI philosophy, including deliberate approaches to change centering data-driven decisions, shared leadership of the DAT that involves multiple stakeholders, building a collective sense of ownership over the change process, and valuing the partnership with student members of the DAT. The DALI philosophy, and the change leaders' uptake of it, has been written about previously [6,29,30], so we will limit the space we dedicate to it here except to note that the DALI approach to change work runs counter to the way that these change leaders have approached change in the past. Here, we will demonstrate how the new philosophy came to be adopted by change leaders by looking at the "change should be deliberately designed" aspect of DALI.…”