Advancing Cultural Change in STEM Departments through Self-Determination Theory

There is evidence to suggest that improving teaching culture within STEM departments in higher education may address key issues for institutional change in undergraduate STEM education, including increasing the numbers of overall STEM graduates who are prepared to address the most pressing issues of the day, and diversifying the population retained in STEM majors and careers (NAS, 2016). In order to increase the quantity, quality, and diversity of the STEM workforce, we must also address the cultural and environmental factors that prevent students from succeeding and staying in STEM majors (NSF, 2020). In our work, we aim to advance cultural change within and across STEM departments by employing a motivational model grounded in self-determination theory (SDT, Ryan & Deci, 2017).

SDT asserts that people (and in our case, STEM faculty) become motivated and have an optimal opportunity to succeed when three basic psychological needs are met: relatedness, competence, and autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2017). In our poster, we argue that STEM teaching suffers from three problematic cultural manifestations that result in unmet psychological needs among STEM faculty. These three problematic cultural manifestations include an Isolationist culture (i.e., a culture that suppresses relatedness with respect to teaching relationships), a Weed-Out culture (a culture that suppresses competence when it comes to teaching ALL students), and a Teach-As-I-Was-Taught culture (i.e., a culture that suppresses autonomy with respect to instructors' imagination of and action toward pedagogical advancement). On our poster, we present a visual and narrative depiction of the preliminary change model guiding our work and we seek feedback from conference attendees on the viability and potential impact of the model.