Understanding and Reducing Faculty Reluctance to Improve Teaching

Many believe college instructors resist new teaching practices. In this article, the author develops a hypothesis to understand resistant faculty members, focusing on their likely educational experiences and on insights from psychology. Using Dweck's conception of self-theories and Fischer's conception of dynamic skill-theory, she defends the hypothesis that those who view teaching ability as a talent will not alter practice for fear of reaching the limit of their talent. In response, institutions should encourage risk taking and discourage the psychologically easier path of not changing. This can be done with institutional structures that support each individual—support that does not depend on the individual's continual success and embraces failures that are the result of considered risk taking.