There have been many calls for the reform of introductory Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) courses based on extensive research demonstrating the significant limitations of
traditional, lecture‐based instruction. These calls have led to large expenditures of time and money on
research and development aimed at improving STEM instruction.
Significant empirical research has shown that student learning can be improved when instructors
move from traditional, transmission‐style instruction to more student‐centered, interactive instruction
[1,2]. However, although tremendous amounts of time and money has gone into developing and
disseminating research‐based pedagogy and curriculum, there currently exists a substantial gap
between knowledge of ‘best practice’ instructional methods within the community of educational
researchers and the teaching practices of typical STEM faculty. The biggest barrier to improving STEM
education is not that we lack knowledge about effective teaching. The biggest barrier to improving
undergraduate STEM education is that we lack knowledge about how to effectively spread the use of
currently available and tested research‐based instructional ideas and strategies.
It is not enough to simply conduct research and develop high quality teaching materials. High
quality research and curriculum development is only valuable if it is actually used. We have been
involved in several projects aimed at better understanding why research‐based reform has not had as
much impact as might be expected given the expenditures of time and money. In the paper that
follows, we detail some of our findings and offer recommendations based on these findings. Although
the majority of our work has been in the field of Physics, we believe that the ideas discussed here are
also relevant to Engineering and other STEM disciplines.