| In the face of mounting evidence of the positive effects on student learning of active and collaborative learning approaches, and concern about the quality of undergraduate education, colleges and universities are being urged to change their environments to encourage and support faculty engagement in such teaching practices. It is important, therefore, to understand dimensions of higher education organizations at multiple levels that influence faculty engagement in active and collaborative teaching practices in order to create strategies to improve college teaching. The concept of organizational climate is well suited to such inquiries because it focuses on current, significant, malleable dimensions of organizations, and is conceived and studied at multiple institutional levels. This study uses a two-stage, mixed methods approach to examine the impact of climate for teaching at the departmental level on faculty teaching approaches, with attention to factors at other organizational levels that may influence it. A model of climate for teaching was tested using a national data set and hierarchical modeling. In-depth qualitative case study analysis then explored how departmental climate for teaching is created and influenced. The results of the analyses complemented each other and provided a breadth and depth of analysis not possible in a single method approach (Tashakorri & Teddlie, 1998).; The departmental level represents 17% of the possible variance in active and collaborative teaching, and the dimensions of departments modeled in this study explained 45% of that variance. Results confirmed the assertions of researchers that the department is an important nexus of extra-institutional, institutional, disciplinary, and personal influences on faculty (Colbeck et al., 2001; Massey, Wilger & Colbeck, 1995), that departmental climates are unique (Moran & Volkwein, 1988; Volkwein & Carbone, 1994), and that they influence the use of active and collaborative teaching by individual faculty. It also demonstrated that disciplines strongly influence department climates for teaching, but do not determine them completely.; The dimensions of departmental climate for teaching that emerged from both analyses as most important included the extent that departments engaged in faculty development for teaching improvement, the leadership and support of departmental chairs, the resources available to departments, and the perceptions of resources available to the department.; This study is one of the first to propose and test dimensions of departmental climate for teaching (Volkwein & Carbone, 1994) and their influence on individual faculty teaching approaches. The results suggest that further definition of departmental teaching climate constructs would be fruitful. An instrument focused on climate for teaching could serve as a useful diagnostic tool for institutions and systems seeking effective strategies to support and encourage faculty excellence in teaching. |
