Impact of Math Science Partnership Work of Higher

Education Faculty

Deborah Pomeroy, Arcadia University

Edward F. Wolff, Arcadia University

Ning Rui, Research for Better Schools

AcknowledgementThis study was conducted as part of NSF

Award HER-0314806.

Many thanks to Westat’s MSP IHE team without whom this study never would have come to be:

Joy Frechtling

Xiaodong Zhang

Gary Silverstein

Questions Explored

This preliminary study adds to the discourse on faculty engagement by further exploring:

a)the nature of the impact of partnership work on teaching and research among higher education faculty members;

b) relationships between variables related to professors’ professional characteristics (such as field of research and instruction and tenure status) and the influence of their MSP experiences on their instruction and/or research;

c) the possibility of impact on professors’ knowledge and thinking within their disciplines.

Boyer (Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, 1990)

• Scholarship encompasses discovery (research), application (engagement and outreach), integration (connection within and across disciplines), and teaching.

• All dimensions of scholarly work, not just research and teaching, should be valued and rewarded in modern institutions that embrace multiple domains of scholarship.

• “Knowledge is acquired through research, through synthesis, through practice and through teaching”

(p. 24)

Value of Discourse

• Faculty Reward StructuresWe need more research to inform the argument that many IHEs need to change their faculty reward structures.

• The critical analysis of what it means to do scholarly work

• The relationship of scholarly work to the disciplines and the institution

Previous Work1) A pilot survey (Pomeroy 2008a)

2) Case studies of MSPGP professors whose partnership work had a significant impact on their scholarly lives (Pomeroy, 2008b)

3) A study comparing the impacts of educational outreach work as reported by a sample of non-MSP NSF science grant awardees and MSP STEM faculty members (Pomeroy and Rui, 2009)

4) Westat ‘s recently published report (Zhang et al, 2009) on the effect of MSP engagement by STEM faculty including the impact of MSP engagement on the STEM faculty members’ teaching and research among many other factors (8 case studies of high engagement projects).

How Does This Study Add?• This is the only study based on the entire set of Westat

MSP IHE faculty respondents. Such a large set (n=605) allows for a robust mixed methods examination of relationships between the impact of MSP and the characteristics of the faculty who report them.

• Many respondents spontaneously discussed not only the impact, but also the mechanism by which the impact occurred, especially in talking about changes in their instructional practices and their research. This provides critical insight in identifying potentially transformative interactions.

Limitations

• This study does not identify or examine the relationship between type of MSP or, except when mentioned in responses, by the type of faculty engagement and impact;

• It covers only one year (2008) of data collection thereby potentially missing the impact of engagement that might have occurred in previous years; and

• Because the questions were embedded in the much broader Westat survey, there was no opportunity for more in-depth probes concerning impact.

Survey

Westat’s higher education team agreed to write and include two questions in their survey:

•Please briefly describe (i.e., one paragraph) any knowledge or experience that you gained through your participation in MSP—and how this knowledge influenced your instruction or research during the 2007-08 school year

•Please describe how your disciplinary research has been influenced by your participation in MSP

Data Collected

Westat sent our team the results together with faculty characteristics:

·  Field of Teaching  ·  Tenure Status

·  Field of Research ·  Faculty Rank

·  Type of Institution ·  Hours on MSP

·  Prior Experiences in K-12 Reform

Coding

• 3 recursive passes through each set of open-ended responses to capture and refine emerging themes

• Combining responses of each subject, combining the themes into one set, and recoding the combined responses.

• Coding included any mention of relevant factors

• Developing thematic three level hierarchy:– Level 1: Main themes– Level 2: Sub-themes– Level 3: Fine-grained level for qualitative discussion only

Level 1 Themes

• Disciplinary Knowledge………………………...(n=47)• Research………………………………………..(n=208)• IHE Instructional Practice……………………(n=239)• Impacts Relating to IHE Students…………….(n=71)• Other IHE Impact ……………………………….(n=57)• Teacher Preparation and Development……(n=208)• District Level Work……………………………...(n=82)• Project/Partnership Management…………..(n=122)• No Impact or Not Applicable…………………...(n=57) n = number of responses in each category out of total sample of 605

Level 2 and Level 3 Coding Hierarchy

• See paper for complete coding hierarchy and frequencies.

Preparation of Database

• 44 Carnegie types of institution were clustered into 4 basic categories:– 2 yr community colleges– Bachelors-granting institutions– Masters-granting institutions– Doctoral-granting institutions

• Teaching and Research categories were clustered into STEM and non-STEM

Association between type of Impact and faculty characteristic by Logistic Regression

• Faculty who reported MSP's impact on their instructional practice are almost three times more likely to be teaching in STEM-related fields (OR=2.8).

• Faculty who reported MSP’s impact on their research are more likely to be from doctoral institutions (OR=1.5), have achieved tenure (OR=1.8) or are tenure-track (OR=3.9), and have invested more than 200 hours (OR=1.6), and less likely to be a researchers in STEM compared to education (OR=.3).

• Faculty who reported growth in skills related to project and partnership management are much less likely to be from 2-year colleges (OR=.2) and be primarily doing research in STEM fields (OR=.6)

Measuring Breadth of Impact

•  For each respondent, the total number, “T”, of Level II categories coded was calculated. The distribution of T is shown below:

(n = 602, mean = 1.95  S.D. = 1.21)

Associations Between Breadth of Impact and Faculty Characteristics

• Multiple regression techniques were employed:

• Predictor variables: faculty characteristics

• Criterion variable:  “T”  (total number of Level II categories coded)

Findings of Multiple Regression Analyses

• Faculty who invested more than 200 hours in the MSP are associated with higher level of reported impact of the program than others (p< .01). This is consistent with both the full (N=602) and subsamples. Subsample 1 is those who teach STEM or Education N= 533 and Subsample 2 is those who research STEM or Education N = 511.

• Faculty whose main research field is STEM are associated with relatively lower level of reported impact compared to faculty whose main academic work lies in education (p< .05). This is consistent with both the subsample of individuals teaching STEM or education and subsample of individuals researching STEM or Education.

Sample Responses

Disciplinary Knowledge

• I have acquired a deep knowledge in the development of many of the common mathematical algorithms that I have always taken for granted. I have used this deeper understanding of the "whys" to assist me in teaching upper-level math courses at [my institution].

• … developing the materials for this course has broadened my knowledge of geometry, its history and of ancient and modern technology created to solve geometry problems - including navigation and Earth measurement problems.

Disciplinary Research• There is significant crossover of [my] research in STEM teaching

and research that I conduct in chemical education, and my work in the MSP has made me more aware of relevant research. My physical chemistry research is in studying multilayer thin light-emitting film devices. My participation in the MSP has made me more aware of how I explain this research to general audiences, which has helped me become better at writing about the research in papers.

• The opportunity to work with and learn from other statisticians from [MSP] partner organizations has had a very positive impact on my own research.

• Through organizing the workshop, I have learned a great deal of the experimental aspects of my field, and that has helped me tremendously in working with my experimental colleagues.

Research Design & Methodology

• Without my participation in MSP, I would not have furthered my research knowledge in areas of problem-solving, proportional reasoning and linear reasoning as it relates to covariational reasoning.

• My ability to design my own experiments has been better defined by my reflection on how I expect students to design their own experiments.

• Developed skills related to minimizing difficulties in conducting qualitative research among quantitative scientists, especially cultural intervention research that requires the full participation of those targeted for change.

Impact on Instructional Practice

• I conduct classroom (action) research in my own Analytical Chemistry course. I use an iterative methodology to progressively improve the learning experience in my classroom. I learned those principles while working in the MSP.

• I am more effective at using a pause interval between my questioning of students and my waiting for a student response.

• I am trying to incorporate using modeling and applications in all of my current classes.

Practice Linked to MSP Activity• During the year we had various speakers giving demonstrations of

modern teaching methods. This has influenced the way I give teaching instructions. Instead of lectures, now I use interactive dialog methods. I also include many questions which can have different answers in different axiomatic settings. This encourages students to create their own set of axioms.

• From meeting with high school and middle school teachers I learned how important it is to return to basic concepts and to not take knowledge for granted when I am teaching.

Practice Linked to MSP Activity con’t

• I continue to learn so much from my high school co-instructor about hands-on activities and ways to incorporate technology in the classroom which make the learning environment more interactive and diverse. I employ these sorts of ideas every chance I get in my own class.

• [I am c]onducting a formal research in my class to examine my teaching strategies. As a result of studying my own classroom, I have revised some of my teaching strategies to include more students’ engagement.

Discussion

1. The evidence shows that MSP work has a direct positive impact on IHE instructional practices especially for those teaching STEM courses for both majors and pre-service students.

Discussion con’t

2. MSP engagement has increased the quality and quantity of educational research in the STEM disciplines and has caused a number of STEM faculty to shift the focus of their research to include educational research.

Discussion con’t

3. MSP engagement has had a positive impact on some professors’ disciplinary knowledge and/or on their disciplinary research.

Discussion con’t

4. Professors who engage in MSP activities see other positive impacts of their work including:– Personal growth– Interest in and ability to work with K-12 schools and teachers– Relationship with other IHE colleagues– Pre-service teacher preparation– Partnership and leadership skills– The quality of instruction in their IHE STEM departments– Their ability to recruit students into their IHE STEM departments

Implications

1. This study adds to the slowly growing body of literature that can be used to inform policy and funding decisions relating to the value of K-20 partnerships to the professors engaged in them – especially those deeply engaged – even when the primary focus may be on K-12 students.

Implications con’t

2. This study contributes empirical evidence to the argument that faculty service in terms of partnerships such as MSPs has the potential to substantively and positively impact commonly rewarded aspects of professors’ scholarly work as well as those described by Boyer; therefore, this service should be valued in the academy.