Factors that Influence Faculty Motivation of Effective Teaching Practices in Engineering

Abstract

in their scholarly endeavors. Her current research interests include studying faculty motivation to change classroom practices, evaluating methods to improve teaching, and exploring ethical decision-making in undergraduate engineering students. Dr. Finelli leads a national initiative to create a taxonomy/keyword outline for the field of engineering education research, and she is past chair of the Educational Research and Methods Division of the American Society of Engineering Education.

A System Approach to Instructional Change in Academia

“…One barrier to change as described by Finelli, et al [22] and Litzinger and Lattuca [24] is that faculty consider many change initiatives demanded or led by the administrators usually ignore the reality of the faculty's environment. Whereas administrators, and many faculty members, consider faculty to be, by nature, resistant to almost any change initiative [22,25].…”

A Way to Win: Incentivizing Engineering Faculty to Incorporate Entrepreneurship in Their Courses

“…Faculty were found to be more likely to make changes if they were able to work on a problem that interested them, received acknowledgement for their efforts, could work within a community of other scholars, and felt able to make a positive impact. Additional studies using motivational frameworks, including Expectancy-Value [6][7] and Motivational Systems [8], similarly identified perceived importance, enjoyment, benefit, relative cost, goals, resources, and skill development as areas or influencers on whether faculty would engage in change efforts.…”

“…Lastly, it is important to highlight the fact that some of the faculty's motivations for seeking funding align with existing literature [6][7][8][9][10], but in other cases, the exact drivers motivating faculty to apply were unclear. Future work related to this topic should focus on clearly delineating faculty motivations, including causes and inhibitors, for applying to internal competitions for teaching-related funding.…”

Board 1: In the Business of Innovation: Development of a Canvas Tool to Promote and Sustain Pedagogical Risk Taking by Faculty

“…The intervention and subsequent study are described in the sections below. Previous publications have detailed the larger research project and goals more holistically [11][12][13][14].…”

“…As part of the goal to establish, cultivate, and promote a culture of pedagogical risk-taking (Priority 1), the research team previously developed a set of guiding principles for developing faculty interventions grounded in literature on educational change, faculty motivation, organizational studies, and STEM teaching practice [11][12][13][14]. These guidelines suggested that faculty interventions implemented by the local RED team should have the following characteristics--be faculty-driven (versus administrative-driven), community-based (versus individual-focused), sustained in duration (versus singular or standalone), flexible for faculty to modify and adapt, inclusive of opportunities for feedback and evaluation, connected to known faculty motivations and values, and disruptive to current thinking and practices but simple to implement [11].…”