Opportunities and Challenges of Team-Based Change in Higher Education

Why Team-Based Change?

Researchers and practitioners who focus on organizational change and how organizations function have frequently considered the promise of team-based work for advancing organizational goals. Researchers have long studied teams in a variety of non-higher education contexts, such as business, science, healthcare, and the military. Research in these contexts has demonstrated that teams can create higher-quality outcomes than individuals because they include a greater variety of perspectives (e.g., Karlgaard & Malone 2014, Woolley et al. 2010).

Team-based change efforts are becoming more prevalent within higher education. This aligns with the growing recognition in the higher education community that systemic change is necessary to improve student experiences in a lasting way. Team-based change efforts also align closely with goals to meaningfully engage and support faculty.

Teams focused on improving courses have specific potential benefits that have been documented in prior research.

1. They can bring together instructors teaching multiple courses within a course sequence to address broad student learning challenges across a degree plan (e.g., Marbach-Ad et al. 2007, Chasteen et al. 2015, Reinholz et al. 2018, Smith et al. 2021).
2. They can bring together instructors teaching the same multi-section course, enabling changes to develop and solidify over many semesters (e.g., Herman et al. 2018, Borda et al. 2020, Smith et al. 2021).
3. They can function as communities of practice (Wenger 1998, Gilley and Kerno 2010) that support individual members' learning about STEM teaching and learning (e.g., Marbach-Ad 2007, Close et al. 2016, Herman et al. 2018, Tomkin et al. 2019, Borda et al. 2020, Smith et al. 2021, Southard et al. 2021).

Why this instrument?

Despite their many potential benefits, team-based approaches to instructional change are risky. Team-based approaches often require significant time, energy, funding, and other resources to implement. Yet teams in general are often less successful than one might hope (Mannix and Neale 2005). For example, teams may struggle to make timely progress because of communication challenges (e.g., Stasser et al. 2000), fall apart because of interpersonal conflict (e.g., Lau and Murnighan 1998, Jehn et al. 1999), and/or fail to fully support the participation of all team members (e.g., Keltner et al. 2003).

We have created a survey instrument that researchers and practitioners can use to diagnose how instructional change teams are working together. Survey data can reveal teams' strengths and areas for improvement to inform future decision-making and showcase emerging successes for funders and other stakeholders.

What's next?

• Learn more about the research underlying the survey.
• Learn how to use the survey and access survey items.
• Fill out an interest form to let us know if you'd like to discuss the survey.
• Fill out an intake form to have the survey distributed to your team(s).
• Edit and send out a sample email to let your team(s) know that they will be receiving the survey