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Background Increasing attention is being paid to improvement in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education through increased adoption of research-based instructional strategies (RBIS), but high-quality measures of faculty instructional practice do not exist to monitor progress.Purpose/Hypothesis The measure of how well an implemented intervention follows the original is called fidelity of implementation. This theory was used to address the research questions: What is the fidelity of implementation of selected RBIS in engineering science courses? That is, how closely does engineering science classroom practice reflect the intentions of the original developers? Do the critical components that characterize an RBIS discriminate between engineering science faculty members who claimed use of the RBIS and those who did not?Design/Method A survey of 387 U.S. faculty teaching engineering science courses (e.g., statics, circuits, thermodynamics) included questions about class time spent on 16 critical components and use of 11 corresponding RBIS. Fidelity was quantified as the percentage of RBIS users who also spent time on corresponding critical components. Discrimination between users and nonusers was tested using chi square.Results Overall fidelity of the 11 RBIS ranged from 11% to 80% of users spending time on all required components. Fidelity was highest for RBIS with one required component: casebased teaching, just-in-time teaching, and inquiry learning. Thirteen of 16 critical components discriminated between users and nonusers for all RBIS to which they were mapped.Conclusions Results were consistent with initial mapping of critical components to RBIS. Fidelity of implementation is a potentially useful framework for future work in STEM undergraduate education.

Many research-based instruction strategies (RBISs) have been developed; their superior efficacy with respect to student learning has been demonstrated in many studies. Collecting and interpreting evidence about: 1) the extent to which electrical and computer engineering (ECE) faculty members are using RBISs in core, required engineering science courses, and 2) concerns that they express about using them, are important aspects of understanding how engineering education is evolving. The authors surveyed ECE faculty members, asking about their awareness and use of selected RBISs. The survey also asked what concerns ECE faculty members had about using RBISs. Respondent data showed that awareness of RBISs was very high, but estimates of use of RBISs, based on survey data, varied from 10% to 70%, depending on characteristics of the strategy. The most significant concern was the amount of class time that using an RBIS might take; efforts to increase use of RBISs must address this.Index Terms-Change in engineering education, diffusion of innovations, faculty adoption, faculty awareness, research-based instructional strategies (RBISs), teaching.

BACKGROUNDInterdisciplinary approaches are critical to solving the most pressing technological challenges. Despite the proliferation of graduate programs to fill this need, there is little archival literature identifying learning outcomes, learning experiences, or benchmarks for evaluating interdisciplinary graduate student learning. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS)The purpose of this study is to understand how engineering and science academics conceptualize interdisciplinary graduate education in order to identify common practices and recommend improvements. Questions generated by an instructional design framework guided the analysis: what desired outcomes, evidence, and learning experiences are currently associated with interdisciplinary graduate education? To what extent are these components constructively aligned with each other? DESIGN/METHODContent analysis was performed on 130 funded proposals from the U.S. National Science Foundation's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program. RESULTSFour desired student learning outcomes were identified: contributions to the technical area, broad perspective, teamwork, and interdisciplinary communication skills. Student requirements (educational plans) addressed these outcomes to some extent, but assessment/evidence sections generally targeted program level goals-as opposed to student learning. This lack of constructive alignment between components is a major weakness of graduate curriculum. CONCLUSIONSCurrent practices are promising. Further clarification of interdisciplinary learning outcomes, coupled with closer alignment of outcomes, evidence, and learning experiences will continue to improve interdisciplinary graduate education in engineering and science. Specific recommendations for engineering and science faculty members are: define clear learning objectives, enlist assessment/ evaluation expertise, and constructively align all aspects of the curriculum.