Capturing the differences between two virtual communities of practice models for faculty development

Faculty development is a possible pathway to inform and encourage adoption of research-based education practices into engineering classrooms. We developed a model for faculty development called a virtual community of practice. In this model we sought to engage faculty with research-based education practices, and more specifically, focus on their implementation of these practices in their courses. Two different VCP designs were utilized in our program. The first cohort (Cycle 1) consisted of faculty that were grouped based on similar courses (n = 77). The second cohort (Cycle 2) consisted of faculty that were grouped based on similar technical engineering disciplines (n = 98). We wanted to determine if there was greater adoption of research-based educational practices depending on whether the VCP was organized around certain courses (Cycle 1) or around certain engineering disciplines (Cycle 2). We developed a self-report survey using Roger's Model of diffusion of innovation to measure faculty member's awareness of, attitudes toward, and adoption of research-based educational practices. A two-way within-subjects repeated measures ANOVA was used to assess significant differences between each cycle. For Awareness, there was not a statistically significant main effect for Cycle (λ = 0.87, F[2,28] = 3.66, p =0.067). However, there was a statistically significant main effect for Cycle for Attitudes (λ = 0.61, F[2,28] = 18.30, p <0.01) and Adoption (λ = 0.46, F[2,28] = 29.85, p <0.01). Adoption had the greatest mean in Cycle 1. Overall, we found that Cycle 1, had significantly greater adoption of research-based education practices.