The Impact of Academic Staff Development on Their Approach to Teaching and Learning

Staffan Andersson; Arnold Neville Pears

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Conference: 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Publication Date: June 24, 2017
Start Date: June 24, 2017
End Date: June 28, 2017
Conference Session: Faculty Development
Tagged Division: Educational Research and Methods
Page Count: 18
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--28974
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/28974
Download Count: 418

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Paper Authors

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Staffan Andersson Uppsala University

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Staffan Andersson is a senior lecturer in physics at Uppsala University, Sweden. His primary research interest is cultural aspects of teaching and learning in science and engineering.

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biography

Arnold Neville Pears Uppsala University orcid.org/0000-0002-5184-4743

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Arnold Pears holds joint professorships in Computer Science with specialisation in Computing Education at Uppsala University and Technical Science Education with specialisation in Engineering Education at KTH (The Royal Institute of Technology), both in Sweden.

He received his BSc(Hons) in 1986 and PhD in 1994, both
from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
He occupied positions as lecturer and senior lecturer at La Trobe University, Australia, between 1991 and 1998. In 1999 he was appointed as senior lecturer atUppsala University, Sweden.

His awards include receiving the Uppsala University Pedagogy Prize in 2008, and appointed as Excellent Teacher at Uppsala University in 2012. Roles at Uppsala University
include appointment to the University Academic Senate,
Programme Director for the IT Engineering programme, member of the selection committee for the Uppsala University Pedgogy prize and serving on the educational advisory board of the Faculty of Technology and Natural Sciences.

He has a strong interest in teaching and
learning research in computer science and engineering, and leads the UpCERG
research group in computing and engineering education research at Uppsala University.
He has published more than 40 articles in the area internationally,
and is well known as a computing education
researcher through his professional activities in the ACM, and IEEE.
In the IEEE he has served as a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Computer
Society, and on
the steering committee of the Frontiers in Education Conference as well as being Chair of
the IEEE Computer Society Special Technical Community (STC) for Education.
He is a Director of CeTUSS (The Swedish National Center for Pedagogical Development of Technology Education in a Societal and Student Oriented Context, www.cetuss.se) and the IEEE Education Society Nordic Chapter.
He as a reviewer for a number of major journals and conferences, including
the Computer Science Education Journal (Taylor and Francis),
the ACM SIGCSE and ITiCSE
and Koli Calling International Computer Science Education conferences.

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Abstract

The Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI) has been used to benchmark the impact of academic staff development programs in a range of different contexts over the last fifteen years.

This paper analyses, discusses and compares two large ATI data sets collected at a Swedish research university, the first data set was collected in 2009 and the second in 2012. This paper provides the results of open factor analysis of both data sets and a discussion of the differences in the nature of the two data sets through a comparison of the 2012 and 2009 analyses.

The open factor analysis of our second data set reveals a new conception of the teacher role which complements the existing transmission and conceptual change orientations. This new instructor orientation focuses on challenging student conceptions to achieve intellectual growth.

We also explore shifts in conceptions of teachers, exploring the impact of the in-service pedagogy courses we have been delivering together with the other initiatives within the Faculty of Science and Technology which aim to equip academics with a richer pedagogical palette as they pursue their teaching and learning activities. We demonstrate a statistically significant shift in staff approach towards conceptual development among staff who have completed our engineering and science education research courses.

Citation
Format

Andersson, S., & Pears, A. N. (2017, June), The Impact of Academic Staff Development on Their Approach to Teaching and Learning Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28974