How to Engage Active Pedagogy with Physics Faculty: Watch Out for Powerlessness

TL;DR

This paper explores why many physics faculty prefer lecture-based teaching despite evidence supporting active learning, highlighting feelings of powerlessness influenced by administrative and institutional constraints.

Contribution

It identifies faculty feelings of powerlessness as a key barrier to adopting active pedagogies and proposes a grounded theory explaining this phenomenon.

Findings

Faculty often feel decisions about pedagogy are out of their control.

Institutional priorities influence faculty teaching methods.

Professional development alone may not change teaching practices.

Abstract

Despite the large body of research showing that students in STEM classes at all levels learn better via active learning than they do via lecture, post-secondary physics and astronomy (P&A) faculty members continue to primarily use teacher-focused, lecture pedagogy in their classes. Methods include answers from eight faculty members, and interviews with five faculty members who self-identified as primarily using lecture were conducted to determine their perceptions of why they use lecture. During analysis coding, results show that an unanticipated theme not sufficiently represented in the pre-existing literature rose to the forefront: that many of these faculty members feel the decision of pedagogy is out of their control. In conclusion, a grounded theory was developed and is proposed herein that these faculty feel a sense of powerlessness. Reasons offered include administrators often make decisions based on the financial needs of the school, which then force the faculty into using lecture as their primary pedagogy. Implications include that providing professional development in active pedagogies may not be sufficient to help faculty members change pedagogy, as they may need to be convinced that they have the power to make change and use student-centered, active learning pedagogies within their own individual constraints and settings. Understanding that some instructors may feel powerless in choosing how to teach is an important step for professional development providers toward ensuring that faculty have a voice and can choose the best teaching methods for their classrooms.