Formative Evaluation on Faculty Participation in Instructional Change Initiatives in Undergraduate Chemistry

In STEM disciplines, there has been a growing emphasis on implementing instructional changes in undergraduate education to enhance student success. Despite collecting different types of data, there are few applications of midproject formative evaluations in instructional reform projects to explore faculty members’ perceptions and interactions as change agents. This study conducted a formative evaluation focusing on a group of faculty participants involved in a project as part of a faculty learning community aimed at revising the chemistry curriculum at a public urban U.S. university, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Using interview data, this study revealed that faculty participants in the reform project perceived their interactive involvement, as well as environmental changes and diverse student needs, as facilitators for their instructional improvement. Additionally, based on department-wide survey measures related to departmental culture and discussion networks for undergraduate education change, faculty participants in the reform efforts had more favorable perceptions of departmental culture about making changes and higher centrality scores within departmental discussion networks compared to their peer faculty members. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to future project implementation and faculty development as change agents.