Pedagogical practices and instructional change of physics faculty

We report on the initial results of a web-based survey of 722 physics faculty in the United States regarding their instructional practices. The survey responses indicate that most faculty report knowing about many physics education research curricula and pedagogies and are interested and motivated to try them in their teaching. However, self-reports of actual classroom practices indicate that the availability of these curricula and pedagogies has not led to fundamental changes in instruction. Faculty report that time is the biggest impediment to implementing more research-based reforms. These results suggest a need for research-based dissemination that accounts for the complexity of instructional change. © 2010 American Association of Physics Teachers. DOI: 10.1119/1.3446763