NSF and other federal agencies have supported numerous projects to improve STEM education for more than two decades. However, the success of efforts to disseminate the advances developed in these projects (i.e. the extent they are being used by other STEM faculty members in their classrooms and laboratories) has not been carefully researched. Thus, an evidence-based, comprehensive listing of the factors that lead to dissemination success does not exist. Without such a listing, educators and researchers are hampered in understanding how to best design pedagogical innovations for maximum effectiveness. This research aims to fill this void by empirically determining which factors are the most important in success of efforts to disseminate STEM learning innovations. A pilot study conducted at the 2011 TUES PI conference identified several important factors and this knowledge has been used to begin making recommendations to developers, implementers, administrators, and funders. However, the pilot study was limited in scope.
This study is being guided by the following research questions, with an emphasis on the first two: 1. How do the factors described in the published literature on the diffusion (or propagation) of innovation affect the success of dissemination of STEM education improvements? 2. How do the predictors of dissemination success in the STEM areas vary by the type of innovation? (Possible types of innovation are instructional materials, instructional strategies, developing faculty expertise, and curriculum development.) 3. Do the predictors of dissemination success for a given type of STEM education improvement differ by academic discipline (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)? 4. Do the predictors of dissemination success for a given type of STEM education improvement differ by the target stakeholder group involved? Possible stakeholders include faculty members, material developers, students, publishers, and grant providers. 5. How does the level of awareness of the stakeholder affect the intention to adopt?
In order to rigorously examine these research questions, a research model based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a widely-used, theoretical paradigm in the discipline of information systems, was developed. The variables in this model are being tested using a mixed methods approach utilizing three complementary methodologies: (1) Content analysis of published results is being used to study current published work in order to identify possible additional factors, (2) Delphi methods are being employed to rate the perceived importance of the factors known (or suspected) to influence diffusion, and to identify additional factors, and (3) a survey methodology is being developed and administered that includes a detailed measurement study to develop psychometrically sound measures for each of the independent factors and the two outcome factors. The survey questionnaire is designed for distribution to a sample of stakeholders in the selected STEM disciplines. It is planned to use a synthesis of the survey results to refine the research model.
