How could change agents have more impact?
Throughout this section we will make use of a framework of four core change strategies [21‐23].
This framework was developed based on a literature review of 192 journal articles focused on efforts by
change agents to improve instructional practices used in undergraduate STEM courses.
The four categories of change strategies (Figure 1) are based on the combined answers to two
fundamental questions that emerged from analysis of articles. The first question is, “What is the
primary aspect of the system that the change strategy seeks to directly impact (individuals or environments and structures)?” For individuals, the change strategy seeks to directly impact the beliefs
and behaviors of instructors, assuming that they act of their own volition. For environments and
structures, the change strategy seeks to impact the environments that are assumed to influence the
actions of individuals. The second question is, “To what extent is the intended outcome for the
individual or environment known in advance (prescribed or emergent)?” For prescribed outcomes, the
change agent knows upon initiating a change process what kind of behavior or mental states in
individuals or groups are expected and sought, driven by the assumption that the change agent has the
key knowledge needed to define the outcomes. For emergent outcomes, the end state in terms of
behaviors or mental states are determined as part of change process, with the assumption that those
involved in the change have important information needed to define the outcomes.
Of the four categories of change strategies, STEM change agents strongly favor the individual and
prescriptive category (Disseminating Curriculum and Pedagogy). This emphasis on development and
dissemination is evident in much of the discourse related to STEM educational change which places
substantial emphasis on the development and testing of specific instructional innovations. Once shown
to be successful by their developer, these innovations are then disseminated to instructors who are
expected to use them with some degree of fidelity. The instructor is not an important part of the
development of these strategies and is often considered to be a barrier to educational change [12,24‐
27]. As an example, consider the model of curriculum development and dissemination described in a
recent program solicitation of the NSF Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program:
“The CCLI program is based on a cyclic model of the relationship between knowledge production
and improvement of practice in undergraduate STEM education. The model is adapted from the
report, "Mathematical Proficiency for All Students" (see
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1643/). In this model, research findings about learning
and teaching challenge existing approaches, thus leading to new educational materials and
teaching strategies. New materials and teaching strategies that show promise give rise to faculty
development programs and methods that incorporate these materials. The most promising of
these developments are first tested in limited environments and then implemented and adapted
in diverse curricula and educational institutions. These innovations are carefully evaluated by
assessing their impact on teaching and learning. In turn, these implementations and assessments
generate new insights and research questions, initiating a new cycle of innovation.” From ref. 28.
We believe that this development and dissemination change model has persisted for so long despite
a lack of proven success because it makes intuitive sense. A change agent might imagine that the
development and dissemination model would be most effective because it places much of the burden
on the change agent to develop innovative strategies and materials. Conducting educational research
and developing new curricular materials requires considerable time and expertise that typical faculty
may not possess. Therefore these tasks are delegated to change agents who develop materials and then
disseminate the materials directly to faculty. The assumption is that the faculty will be convinced to use
these new instructional materials and strategies once they are shown data demonstrating that these
new methods produce improved student learning compared to traditional instructional methods.
The development and dissemination change model has been reasonably successful at increasing
awareness and interest in research based innovations. However, it is not effective at changing practice.
This is not surprising since the model implicitly assumes that knowledge and interest are sufficient for
change.