A Delphi Study to Establish Consensus on the Levers for Change for Implementing Biology Graduate Student Teaching Professional Development

Biology graduate students (GS) are critically important undergraduate instructors, particularly in introductory science courses where attribute poor instruction as a critical factor for their attrition from the major. Teaching professional development (TPD) to guide GS teaching is linked with more positive student learning outcomes, yet varies widely in quality and quantity among biology departments. Given the importance of departments in reform efforts, how departmental cultural values and beliefs relate to support for GS TPD is a critical yet unexplored part of pedagogical change efforts. This work is guided by the following research question: what cultural characteristics make biology departments more (or less) likely to provide support for GS TPD? This work is supported by funding from the NSF ECR strand. We utilized a Delphi methodology to solicit feedback from n = 35 research and practitioner experts in biology GS TPD. This method elicits expert consensus on a topic through multiple rounds of interactions with an expert panel. We interviewed each expert participant (Round #1) using a semi-structured interview protocol. Thematic content analysis allowed us to identify 36 supports and 29 barriers to providing GS TPD in biology departments. These supports and barriers were then sent to our expert panel as a short survey (Round #2). Participants were asked to rank each of the supports and barriers based on their importance to GS TPD implementation as well as their difficulty to change within departments. After ranking, a second survey was distributed to our expert panel to confirm the rankings and provide feedback (Round #3). Findings are currently being used to develop a theory of change. Results and an initial version of our theory of change will be presented at the conference.