University Instructors’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices Across STEM and Non-STEM Blended Courses

Abstract

The rising trend of blended learning in higher education has benefited student engagement and learning across all disciplines. Universities have facilitated and encouraged teaching and learning centers to offer technology-based professional development workshops and help to instructors, yet blended instructional practices do not always fall in line with the anticipated success of these new initiatives. It is suggested that instructors’ blended practices across disciplines are influenced by their epistemological beliefs (about the nature of knowledge), pedagogical beliefs (conceptions of teaching and learning), and their attitudes towards technology in blended courses. These relationships between instructors’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices may vary further across disciplines.

This mixed-methods study shed light on and explored the relationship among instructors’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices in several ways and compared and contrasted them across STEM and non-STEM instructors. Using a socio-constructive and socio-cultural framework and drawing from Fishbein and Ajzen’s belief and attitude theory, this study explores the relationship between instructors’ epistemological and pedagogical beliefs, their attitudes towards technology and their blended practices. A survey with seventy instructors teaching blended courses in a university in Southwestern Canada was conducted using the online survey platform Qualtrics. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with twenty-four instructors across STEM and non-STEM blended course, followed by one to four classroom observations of fifteen instructors. Findings show how instructors’ epistemological and pedagogical beliefs are related to their practices and how their attitudes towards technology intertwine within their beliefs and practices. Additionally, this study offers implications for universities investing in blended courses and STEM and non-STEM instructors and designers for blended courses. Keywords: Instructor belief, epistemological, pedagogical, attitudes towards technology, instructor practice, STEM and non-STEM instructors