WIP: Chemical Engineering Faculty Attitudes Towards Evidence-based Instruction Practices and Growth Mindset

Mechteld Veltman Hillsley; Karen A High; Stephanie Butler Velegol; Michael John Janik; Jennifer S. Brown

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: WIP: Student Success and Sustainability
Tagged Division: Chemical Engineering Division (ChED)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/48291

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Paper Authors

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Mechteld Veltman Hillsley Penn State University

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Dr. Hillsley is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. She received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 1988 and an MS and PhD from Penn State in 1990 and 1994, respective

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Karen A High Clemson University

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Dr. Karen High holds an academic appointment in the Engineering Science and Education department and joint appointments in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department as well as the Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences department. Prior

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Stephanie Butler Velegol Penn State University

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Stephanie Butler Velegol is a Teaching Professor in Chemical Engineering at Penn State University. She pioneered the use of Flipped classes to increase active leaning in the classroom and works on water treatment.

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Michael John Janik Penn State University

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Jennifer S. Brown Clemson University orcid.org/0000-0002-3712-8089

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Jennifer Brown earned her PhD in Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University in 2023, and her Master's in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University in 2020. She is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the Engineering Education Transformations Institute at the University of Georgia. Her primary research foci include graduate student and faculty development, graduate well-being, asset-based approaches to engineering education, and mentorship of women in STEM. Her background is in advanced manufacturing and design.

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Abstract

In the Chemical Engineering department at a large public R1 university, we are working on changing the culture of our department through a multipronged approach involving students, faculty, and alumni. In working towards this change, we are gathering data from our stakeholders with the goal of initiating substantial and lasting change. In this WIP, we will share our data gathering process and some of our early feedback from our faculty, who will be agents of this change. Our initial step in the process was a series of focus groups to better understand the needs and frustrations of current students and faculty. From analysis of the focus group data, we curated ten rough “goals” for the departmental change effort. These ten goals were then brought to a faculty retreat in which the faculty helped brainstorm to formulate three overarching aims for our shared vision of the departmental change efforts. One of these aims was to incorporate Evidence-Based Instructional Practices (EBIPS) into our teaching strategies by educating our faculty in EBIPs in ways that highlight their direct applicability to the courses we teach.

Next, we designed a faculty survey with questions to explore faculty attitude to growth mindset in teaching chemical engineering. Our hypothesis is that faculty who have a fixed mindset may resist incorporating EBIPs into their teaching.

Part of this survey presented the following three statements, (adopted from Yeager 2022, Canning 2019) and asked whether respondents agreed or disagreed on a 6-point Likert scale

(1) People have a certain amount of intelligence, and they really can't do much to change it. (2) Being a top chemical engineering student requires a special talent that can't be taught. (3) Successfully completing a chemical engineering degree requires a special talent that can't be taught.

for which we achieved a 75% response rate. Preliminary results show that faculty somewhat disagree with (1), are neutral/somewhat disagree with (2), and disagree with (3). There is a large standard deviation with these responses, especially for (2). Although faculty believe, on average, that all students can learn chemical engineering, faculty feel that some inherent intelligence or skill is needed, indicating that at least some of our faculty do not subscribe to a growth mindset. Faculty are less convinced about all students being capable of becoming a top student. When we look at these same questions but separate out full tenured professors from all other faculty, we see that the full tenured professors tend more towards agreeing with the statements than the other faculty. Similarly, when separating faculty between white males and other groups (all minorities grouped together including females and non-white males), we see that the white male group tends to lean more towards agreeing with the statements than the other group. In this WIP, we will discuss these differences and report back in more detail on the findings from this survey, which also includes faculty perceptions on student learning and the support necessary for change.

Yeager, D.S., Carroll, J.M., Buontempo, J., Cimpian, A., Woody, S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., Murray, J., Mhatre, P., Kersting, N. and Hulleman, C., 2022. Teacher mindsets help explain where a growth-mindset intervention does and doesn’t work. Psychological Science, 33(1), pp.18-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211028984

Canning, E.A., Muenks, K., Green, D.J. and Murphy, M.C., 2019. STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes. Science advances, 5(2), p.eaau4734.

Citation
Format

Hillsley, M. V., & High, K. A., & Velegol, S. B., & Janik, M. J., & Brown, J. S. (2024, June), WIP: Chemical Engineering Faculty Attitudes Towards Evidence-based Instruction Practices and Growth Mindset Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48291

TY - CPAPER
AB - In the Chemical Engineering department at a large public R1 university, we are working on changing the culture of our department through a multipronged approach involving students, faculty, and alumni. In working towards this change, we are gathering data from our stakeholders with the goal of initiating substantial and lasting change. In this WIP, we will share our data gathering process and some of our early feedback from our faculty, who will be agents of this change. Our initial step in the process was a series of focus groups to better understand the needs and frustrations of current students and faculty. From analysis of the focus group data, we curated ten rough “goals” for the departmental change effort. These ten goals were then brought to a faculty retreat in which the faculty helped brainstorm to formulate three overarching aims for our shared vision of the departmental change efforts. One of these aims was to incorporate Evidence-Based Instructional Practices (EBIPS) into our teaching strategies by educating our faculty in EBIPs in ways that highlight their direct applicability to the courses we teach.

Next, we designed a faculty survey with questions to explore faculty attitude to growth mindset in teaching chemical engineering. Our hypothesis is that faculty who have a fixed mindset may resist incorporating EBIPs into their teaching.

Part of this survey presented the following three statements, (adopted from Yeager 2022, Canning 2019) and asked whether respondents agreed or disagreed on a 6-point Likert scale

(1) People have a certain amount of intelligence, and they really can&#39;t do much to change it.
(2) Being a top chemical engineering student requires a special talent that can&#39;t be taught.
(3) Successfully completing a chemical engineering degree requires a special talent that can&#39;t be taught.

for which we achieved a 75% response rate. Preliminary results show that faculty somewhat disagree with (1), are neutral/somewhat disagree with (2), and disagree with (3). There is a large standard deviation with these responses, especially for (2). Although faculty believe, on average, that all students can learn chemical engineering, faculty feel that some inherent intelligence or skill is needed, indicating that at least some of our faculty do not subscribe to a growth mindset. Faculty are less convinced about all students being capable of becoming a top student. When we look at these same questions but separate out full tenured professors from all other faculty, we see that the full tenured professors tend more towards agreeing with the statements than the other faculty. Similarly, when separating faculty between white males and other groups (all minorities grouped together including females and non-white males), we see that the white male group tends to lean more towards agreeing with the statements than the other group. In this WIP, we will discuss these differences and report back in more detail on the findings from this survey, which also includes faculty perceptions on student learning and the support necessary for change.

Yeager, D.S., Carroll, J.M., Buontempo, J., Cimpian, A., Woody, S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., Murray, J., Mhatre, P., Kersting, N. and Hulleman, C., 2022. Teacher mindsets help explain where a growth-mindset intervention does and doesn’t work. Psychological Science, 33(1), pp.18-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211028984

Canning, E.A., Muenks, K., Green, D.J. and Murphy, M.C., 2019. STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes. Science advances, 5(2), p.eaau4734.
AU - Mechteld Veltman Hillsley
AU - Karen A High
AU - Stephanie Butler Velegol
AU - Michael John Janik
AU - Jennifer S. Brown
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - WIP: Chemical Engineering Faculty Attitudes Towards Evidence-based Instruction Practices and Growth Mindset
UR - https://peer.asee.org/48291
ER -