The impact of academic staff development on their approach to teaching and learning

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 inservice 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.