We Teach as We See the World: Correspondence Between STEM Faculty Family Roles and Identities, System Narratives, and Self-Reported Teaching Practices

Despite extensive reform efforts, many STEM professors adhere to lecture-focused approaches, leading education researchers to question what shapes STEM teaching practices and how best to encourage the adoption of evidence-based alternatives. The interdisciplinary field of narrative research has shown that the stories we tell, and the system narratives that underlie them, offer insights into how we make sense of the world and correspond to a range of behaviors and outcomes. System narratives are stories about the nature and structure of the world. Furthermore, the roles we play in our families and our identities in that setting influence our behavior in a variety of other contexts. Our pilot study explores correlations between STEM faculty’s system narratives, roles and identities within their families, and self-reported teaching practices using inductive and deductive coding of interviews with 15 STEM faculty at two primarily undergraduate institutions. Through this work, we contribute to a growing strand of literature arguing that STEM faculty make decisions based on how they view themselves, their students, and the act of teaching, rather than defaulting to teaching as they were taught or adhering to disciplinary norms. By focusing on the personal domain of influences that shape our teaching and inviting faculty to shift the system narratives they draw from, we may find new avenues to engage colleagues in exploring active and student-centered teaching approaches that make sense to them.