Perceived affordances and constraints regarding instructors’ use of Peer Instruction: Implications for promoting instructional change

Abstract

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Preparing and Supporting University Physics Educators.] In order to promote sustained and impactful educational transformation, it is essential for change agents to understand more about faculty perceptions associated with either adopting or not adopting a research-based instructional strategy (RBIS). In this paper, we use interviews with 35 physics faculty to examine barriers and affordances to the use of the research-based instructional strategy of Peer Instruction. We found that the most common reasons faculty give for aligning their instruction with Peer Instruction is that it is not lecture and they have had positive experiences with Peer Instruction. The most common reasons faculty give for not using Peer Instruction are concerns about the time it will take, the loss of content coverage, and having had bad experiences with it. Additionally, we found the perceived barriers to be very different depending on whether the interviewee was a user of Peer Instruction or not, with nonusers being more concerned with time and users being more concerned with implementation difficulties. It is important for change agents to understand and address concerns faculty have about implementing researchbased instructional strategies. Based on these results we offer four recommendations for those interested in promoting educational transformation toward research-based instructional strategies: (1) do not waste a lot of time criticizing lecture-based instruction and convincing faculty of the value of research-based strategies (they are already dissatisfied with lecture), (2) understand and address concerns faculty have about implementing active learning techniques, (3) focus on supporting and encouraging faculty experiences with RBIS, (4) address concerns faculty new to RBIS have about the time and energy needed to change.

How faculty learn about and implement research-based instructional strategies: The case of Peer Instruction

“…However, there were clearly times where a faculty member knew of the suggested implementation and intentionally chose to modify their use. Because a discussion of this topic is so extensive and illuminating we have chosen to present this analysis in a separate paper [26]. We reiterate that all of the interviewees indicated in the survey, and confirmed at the beginning of the interview, that they knew about PI.…”

“…Note that this paper focuses on the interview results related to instructors' knowledge and use of Peer Instruction. Other papers use this same set of interview data to focus on instructors' perceptions of the affordances and constraints of using Peer Instruction [26], and how instructors and institutions judge teaching effectiveness [27].…”

Pedagogical sensemaking or “doing school”: In well-designed workshop sessions, facilitation makes the difference

“…As we have demonstrated here and elsewhere, qualitative, case study research can provide direct guidance to workshop leaders and other change agents. Specifically, this kind of work can both expand their understanding of what it can look like for faculty to engage in doing school and pedagogical sensemaking, and provide them with insights about how to foster one and mitigate the other [23,56]. In this work, we have only captured a few aspects of what we suggest could comprise pedagogical sensemaking.…”

“…In physics, one-third of faculty who try out RBIS discontinue their use after a single semester [16], and many perceive barriers to using these strategies [23]. Moreover, some faculty who use RBIS modify them in ways that seem likely to decrease their potential impact [24].…”

Faculty adoption of teaching innovations that promote diversity and student retention in undergraduate computing

“…This unexpected result might be due to the highly specific wording and an acronym, which may have deterred some faculty from interpreting the title of the practice in common-sense terms and reporting usage erroneously, a phenomenon observed in physics education for "peer instruction" (Dancy, Henderson, and Turpen 2016).…”