The research design for this project is longitudinal, involves synthesis research, and is also designed to generate evidence that is descriptive and associative/correlational through ethnography and observation. This project will use a web-based survey instrument, a semi-structured interview protocol, and an observation protocol. The web-based survey will elicit information about instructor beliefs about teaching and learning, pedagogical content knowledge, pedagogical strategies, and level of participation in reform activities. The semi-structured interview protocol will include a retrospective think-aloud procedure and questions focused on the subjects’ perceptions of how their organizational environment influences their instructional practices. Finally, the observation protocol will be used to observe instructors teaching in large lecture and small discussion environments.
The survey data will be analyzed using the cultural consensus model (principal-components analysis) to identify groups of subjects who exhibit consensus on certain survey items, and individual cultural knowledge in that area. ANOVA and hierarchical linear modeling will be used to test relationships among different variables from the survey. Protocol analysis will be used to analyze the think-aloud data, and grounded theory will be used to analyze interview data. Findings from each type of analysis will be triangulated with others when they assess similar measures or phenomenon.
