Case Study
Innovation compatibility – What influences a faculty member decision to pursue research-based education innovations?
Based on work by:
Devlin Montfort, Shane Brown & Jerine Pegg, Oregon State University
Intervention Types
Process
This case study provides a detailed example of faculty decision making on the use of an TEL-based assessment of teamwork in a capstone engineering course (Montfort et. al. 2012). A key factor in faculty members’ evaluation – and ultimately adoption – of such research-based educational innovations is how compatible they seem to be with their teaching context. The innovation in this study at Oregon State University is the Team Citizenship Assessment Instrument (TCAI), one part of a suite of assessment instruments currently being developed for widespread use in capstone design courses. The various evaluation tools were developed to help assess and achieve important educational outcomes such as teamwork, communication, and design skills (particularly those required by the ABET Accreditation Commission).
Extensive interviews with faculty showed the key factors shaping their adoption (or not) of the TCAI was its perceived compatibility with their own and their institutions’ values and goals, as well as the nature of the faculty communication channels and social networks. The study revealed that faculty adoption rates differ where there is no explicit consensus about the purpose of the course or the roles of assessment and student teamwork in achieving that purpose. In other words, the participants not only differed on their perceptions of the TEL innovation itself, but on the problems it was intended to address.
- A key factor in faculty members’ evaluation – and ultimately adoption – of research-based educational innovations is how compatible they seem to be with their teaching context.
- Developing departmental or school consensus about the purpose of the course or the role of assessment in achieving that purpose would seem to ease adoption of innovations designed to address that agreed-upon goal.
- Devlin Montfort, Shane Brown, Jerine Pegg. The adoption of a capstone assessment instrument. Journal of Engineering Education. 101(4): October 2012, 657.
