CHAT-ing about Change in STEM: New Perspectives for Change Agents from Cultural Historical Activity Theory

This poster session invites dialogue about how to conceptualize transformative change in STEM by illustrating the use of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) for self-assessment, evaluation, and research. Our interdisciplinary group will provide examples from our involvement in Penn State's Equity Pedagogy Network (2019-2025), which was developed to support and enhance the racial equity work of faculty, staff and administrators across Penn State to institutionalize equity pedagogy and culturally sustaining curricula. Using CHAT and a self-assessment worksheet (which we will also provide to conference participants) we depict and discuss our context-sensitive change efforts that spanned institutional, departmental, and individual levels of change.

By inviting dialogue and resource sharing about change theories, we build on and add to research published by Daniel Reinholz, Isabel White, and Tessa Andrews[1] (2021). They published a systematic review of nearly 100 peer-reviewed articles (published between 1995 and 2019) describing how change theories have been applied to study initiatives designed to transform undergraduate STEM education and learning. Through their systematic review of the literature, Reinholz, White, and Andrews found that research concerning change in STEM higher education typically pays insufficient or minimal attention to contexts of change. Looking to the future, they highlight CHAT as an underutilized change theory for broader use, arguing that it has "potential to help move our efforts beyond individual change." Paying attention to social, political, historical, and community contexts, as CHAT does, is important (as these authors emphasize) because "theory that attends to larger systemic and structural issues can help sustain change in STEM higher education" (p. 16). Therefore, in this session, we offer an analytical approach to conceptualize and assess systemic change.

[1] Reinholz, D., White, I., & Andrews, T. (2021). Change theory in STEM higher education: A systematic review. International Journal of STEM Education 8(37), 1-22. doi:10.1186/s40594-021-00291-2