THE VALUE OF COMPLIMENTARY RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS IN SUPPORTING AND DOCUMENTING CHANGE IN UNDERGRADUATE SCIENCE TEACHING

The vision of Teaching with Investigation and Design in Science (TIDeS) is that future teachers will learn science as undergraduates the way they are expected to teach science in the K–12 classroom: engaging all students in science investigation and engineering design in an inclusive learning process. To achieve that vision, TIDeS supported instructors in the development and implementation of rigorously-tested curricular materials and asked two broad research questions: how do the beliefs and practices of instructors change with developing and/or implementing new materials, and what is the impact of the use of these new materials on students?

To address these questions, we employed a suite of complimentary research instruments that collectively provide a picture of how instructors’ teaching beliefs and practices changed over the three years of the project, and how students’ beliefs, attitudes, and confidence responded. To assess changes in teaching beliefs, we asked instructors to complete a Likert-scale survey at the beginning and end of the project and interviewed them annually. To assess practices, we observed their teaching using two protocols and evaluated syllabi using a rubric. To assess impact on students’ beliefs, we implemented a pre-/post-course survey in courses with and without the use of the new materials.

As a result, we were able to document change as we supported instructors in developing and implementing new materials. Before participating, most instructors held internally inconsistent teaching beliefs that were misaligned with their practices: for example, they agreed with a statement that expresses reformed teaching beliefs, described transitional beliefs in response to open-ended questions, and employed instructive strategies in classes we observed. After a year of support and a first implementation of new materials, instructors’ teaching shifted to more reformed and inclusive practices; after a second implementation, instructors’ teaching practices were in better alignment with their beliefs. Students taught with the new materials were more comfortable voicing their ideas and more confident in using their science skills to figure out a problem, among other differences. Our results highlight that beliefs and practices are expressed in multiple ways and the interactions between them need to be acknowledged to support lasting change.