Implementation Science

Over the years, I have enjoyed sharing research on teaching (and super delighted when faculty are able to integrate the research). This week, I would like to share a recent (2020) article with a different perspective on teaching research, the concept of "Adapting Implementation Science (IS)" by Soicher, Becker and Bostwick.

IS is different from applied research as it is focused on the factors that contribute to the uptake of an intervention, rather than the effectiveness itself. This becomes important when research-based methods are insufficient when redesigning courses. An IS approach has been used in the allied health sciences to close the science-to-practice gap.

There are examples of IS in psychology, education, and the learning sciences, such as Design-Based Implementation Research (Penuel et al., 2011). The authors propose a framework for integrating IS into higher ed, which include Scholarly Teaching; Science of Learning; Basic Cognitive Science; Self-Efficacy; Practice-based Research; Effectiveness Research; SoTL; and Meta-Analysis.

The study recommends four concrete suggestions on how to integrate IS in teaching and learning:

1. conceptualize instructors as scientist–educators (Bernstein et al. 2010);

2. use pragmatic controlled trials in research designs;

3. adopt and adapt planning and evaluation frameworks; and

4. expand and improve transparency of reporting.

A scientist–educator appreciates the complexities of excellent teaching and systematically collects evidence about teaching effectiveness, reflecting on and using that evidence to revise teaching, and sharing what they have learned. As a scientist–educator, one need not be an expert in research, but one must do more than merely use others’ teaching techniques without evaluation.

References

Soicher, R., Becker, K. & Bostwick, K. (2020). Adapting implementation science for higher education research: the systematic study of implementing evidence-based practices in college classrooms. Cognitive Research: Principals and Applications, 5:54.

Penuel, W. R., Fishman, B. J., Cheng, B. H., & Sabelli, N. (2011). Organizing research and development at the intersection of learning, implementation, and design. Educational Researcher, 40(7), 331–337.

Bernstein, D. J., Addison, W., Altman, C., Hollister, D., Komarraju, M., Prieto, L. (2010). Toward a scientist-educator model of teaching psychology. In D. F. Halpern (Ed.), Undergraduate education in psychology: A blueprint for the future of the discipline (pp. 29–45). Washington: American Psychological Association.