dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaPhysics Faculty and Educational Researchers: Divergent Expectations as Barriers to the Diffusion of Innovations
| Authors | Charles Henderson, Melissa H. Dancy |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0608295 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0608295 |
| DOI | 10.1063/1.2177045 |
Abstract
Physics Education Research (PER) practitioners have engaged in substantial curriculum development and dissemination work in recent years. Yet, it appears that this work has had minimal influence on the fundamental teaching practices of typical physics faculty. To better understand this situation interviews were conducted with 5 likely users of physics education research. All reported making changes in their instructional practices and all were influenced, to some extent, by educational research. Yet, none made full use of educational research and most had complaints about their interactions with educational researchers. In this paper we examine how these instructors used educational research in making instructional decisions and identify divergent expectations about how researchers and faculty can work together to improve student learning. Although different instructors emphasized different aspects of this discrepancy between expectations, we believe that they are all related to a single underlying issue: the typical dissemination model is to disseminate curricular innovations and have faculty adopt them with minimal changes while faculty expect researchers to work with them to incorporate research-based knowledge and materials into their unique instructional situations. Implications and recommendations are discussed.
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"abstract": "Physics Education Research (PER) practitioners have engaged in substantial\ncurriculum development and dissemination work in recent years. Yet, it appears\nthat this work has had minimal influence on the fundamental teaching practices\nof typical physics faculty. To better understand this situation interviews were\nconducted with 5 likely users of physics education research. All reported\nmaking changes in their instructional practices and all were influenced, to\nsome extent, by educational research. Yet, none made full use of educational\nresearch and most had complaints about their interactions with educational\nresearchers. In this paper we examine how these instructors used educational\nresearch in making instructional decisions and identify divergent expectations\nabout how researchers and faculty can work together to improve student\nlearning. Although different instructors emphasized different aspects of this\ndiscrepancy between expectations, we believe that they are all related to a\nsingle underlying issue: the typical dissemination model is to disseminate\ncurricular innovations and have faculty adopt them with minimal changes while\nfaculty expect researchers to work with them to incorporate research-based\nknowledge and materials into their unique instructional situations.\nImplications and recommendations are discussed.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0608295",
"authors": [
"Charles Henderson",
"Melissa H. Dancy"
],
"categories": [
"physics.ed-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1063/1.2177045",
"title": "Physics Faculty and Educational Researchers: Divergent Expectations as Barriers to the Diffusion of Innovations",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0608295"
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