Purpose

The science education community is deeply vested in growing the next generation of scientists.  One way to do this is through evidence-based interventions that support the motivation and performance of undergraduate students in introductory science classes. Researchers across education and psychology have developed and demonstrated efficacy for many such interventions. Unfortunately, the process of developing and evaluating pedagogical practices is not the same as the process required to scale those efforts into actual implementation within university classrooms. In this project, we examined both barriers to intervention adoption and strategies to facilitate adoption at scale. To do so, we focused on a single intervention, the utility value intervention (UVI), a classroom writing assignment intervention that has strong empirical support for boosting student motivation and performance by helping students see greater value in what they are learning. We collected data from randomly selected biology faculty who teach introductory courses across the United States using interviews, surveys, and experimental methods. In conceiving of implementing an evidence-based intervention as a “helping” behavior, we adapted the classic decision-making model of helping to inform our approach. The main objective was to understand the intervention implementation process, using the UVI as an exemplar intervention – with implications for other evidence-based classroom interventions.

We started by asking the key question: What theory-informed strategies maximize faculty’s positive attitudes toward, and long term adoption of, the utility value intervention within their introductory biology course? Our findings point to specific barriers that make faculty less likely to adopt the UVI in their classroom, even after learning of its benefits. Although faculty widely viewed the UVI as valuable, their perceptions of costs (e.g. to time and trade-offs with investing time relative to other aspects of their work) lowered adoption likelihood. In addition, consistent with our expectations, biology faculty used social cues, or looked to their peers and institutional leaders, to evaluate whether pursuing these kinds of activities was both valued and normative. Through careful experimentation, our results showed three elements that together persuaded biology faculty to adopt the UVI in their classroom in some form: 1) Identify the situation and frame it as urgent 2) Ensure faculty feel responsible and 3) Offers tools and templates so faculty know how to act. These findings led us to identify several important institutional practices and policies that can promote intervention adoption, and we disseminated these lessons via several scholarly publications and presentations. 

Efforts to encourage faculty to adopt successful evidence-based classroom intervention practices often move slowly, through relatively small personal and professional networks. We developed and disseminated a complementary proactive strategy designed to raise awareness of the UVI across a broad swath of U.S. biology faculty. Our strategy resulted in this particular intervention being adopted in some form by more than 4 in 10 of faculty who learned about it, reaching an estimated 7,500 students across the U.S. We have shared this process, along with a detailed guide and ready-to-use resources concrete tools for faculty across a variety of platforms. Our theory-driven approach to finding and engaging science faculty using social psychological principles allows intervention researchers to broaden the reach and scale of their evidence-based efforts maximizing the public good and the public dollar. Our methods and results can serve as a catalyst to meaningfully change science student outcomes and broaden the scientific workforce.

To learn even more about ADAPT, visit the project website

Funding

Understanding and removing faculty barriers for the adoption and implementation of proven interventions. National Science Foundation HRD 1759947, 2018—2022. 

PIs: Dustin Thoman & Felisha Herrera-Villarreal, SDSU;  Jessi Smith, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Key personnel:  Jamie Dunn, Gabriella Kovats Sanchez, Peter McPartlan, Jennifer Poe, Melo Jean Yap

Representative publications

Smith, J.L. & Thoman, D.B. (in press). Scaling up: Lessons for persuading science faculty to adopt an evidence-based intervention. Journal of College Science Teaching. Paper accepted November 2022.

McPartlan, P., Thoman, D.B., Poe, J., Herrera, F.A., & Smith, J.L. (2022). Appealing to faculty gatekeepers: Expectancy, value, and cost concerns for adopting an evidence-based intervention. BioScience 72, 664-672. doi: 10.1093/biosci/biac029

Thoman, D.B., Yap, M.J., Herrera, F.A., & Smith. J.L. (2021). Diversity interventions in the classroom: From resistance to action. CBE Life Science Education 20: ar52, 1-15. doi:10.1187/cbe.20-07-0143

Smith, J.L., McPartlan, P., Poe, J., & Thoman, D.B. (2021). Diversity fatigue: A survey for measuring attitudes towards diversity efforts in academia. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 27, 659-674. doi: 10.1037/cdp0000406