Are All'EBIPs' Created Equal? An Exploration of Engineering Faculty Adoption of Nine Evidence-Based Instructional Practices

It is well-established that evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) can improve student learning and success in the classroom. Previous research has highlighted a substantial gap between awareness of EBIPs among engineering faculty and their consequent adoption in their courses. Several broad barriers and affordances have been identified by past studies, but there is growing recognition of context-specific influences on engineering faculty's decision to pursue and persist with integrating EBIPs in their courses. As part of a larger, ongoing study examining context-based influences on engineering faculty adoption of EBIPs, the present study is guided by the overarching exploratory research question: How do barriers and affordances to adoption of EBIPs by engineering faculty vary between EBIP types? To address this research question and provide contextual insight into variation of adoption approaches between EBIPs, we analyzed open-ended survey responses from engineering faculty participants who described specific challenges related to nine EBIP types including active learning, case-based teaching, collaborative learning, concept tests, cooperative learning, inquiry learning, just-in-time teaching, peer instruction, and problem-based learning. We report situational and individual patterns identified for each EBIP type and provide a cross-case analysis exhibiting how the patterns vary across them to inform a larger effort to address contextual challenges to EBIP adoption and develop solutions which may be modified to satisfy requirements on a classroom-by-classroom basis.