Comparison of Pretenured and Tenured Engineering Professors'

Abstract

Analyzing 36,000 strings of instructional data from fifteen faculty teaching twenty-eight courses over five semesters, the authors conducted a research study exploring differences in the pedagogical practices of pretenured and tenured faculty teaching innovative courses designed around the principles of the “How People Learn” (HPL) framework and of pretenured and tenured faculty teaching traditional, lecture-based courses. Consistent with previous research that reports that time is needed for pretenured faculty to become proficient teachers and with research that identifies lecture to be the primary teaching strategy used by engineering faculty, the current study provides additional insight into the types of pedagogical practices most prevalent among the four types of faculty. Lectures incorporating HPL elements were used to a greater extent by pretenured faculty teaching HPL courses and by tenured faculty in traditional courses more than their tenured and pretenured counterparts, respectively. Pretenured faculty who taught courses that were designed to reflect HPL pedagogical practices incorporated more HPL elements and illustrations in their lectures and supplemented their lecture with comments that were and were not HPL-oriented than tenured faculty teaching HPL-oriented courses.