Introduction
The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) is committed to conducting and disseminating pedagogical research as a central part of our mission. In order to accomplish this aim, we developed a project to explore pedagogical research published by Rice community members. This project was funded in part by the Fondren Fellows program and involved a collaboration between Fondren Fellow Lucy Hu and CTE Associate Director Catherine Barber.
The project involved designing and implemting search and cross-referencing strategies to discover Rice pedagogical research, disseminate this research, and analyze key features of the research.
Research Questions
- How has engagement with pedagogical research evolved among Rice researchers?
- What are some of the predominant themes in this research?
Methods
A structured approach was employed to collect, classify, and analyze pedagogical research, involving the following key steps:
- Database Identification & Search Strategy Development
- The Web of Science database was used as the primary source for retrieving pedagogical articles.
- Initial search categories included Education, Educational Research, and Education Scientific Discipline, with results limited to Rice University-affiliated publications, yielding 297 items.
- Data Organization & Classification
- A comprehensive collection of pedagogical articles authored by Rice-affiliated researchers was compiled.
- The Web of Science items were manually reviewed to verify their relevance to pedagogical research, confirm current or former Rice-affiliated authors, and limit to journal articles as the publication type.
- Additional articles were identified through direct solicitation of Umbrella IRB researchers.
- Additional features, including author departments, article discipline, and research type, were added to finalize the collection.
- Only publications from 2000 to 2024 were selected for inclusion, resulting in 79 publications for the analysis.
- Data Analysis & Trend Identification
- Counts and yearly trends were analyzed for discipline, author department, journal, and article type to identify patterns in pedagogical research.
- Graphs were generated to visualize publication trends over time, highlighting variations in research engagement across disciplines and departments.
- The analysis provided insights into which disciplines and departments have contributed most to pedagogical research and how engagement has changed over time.
Results
Our analysis of pedagogical research publications from 2000 to 2024 suggests a growing interest in publishing pedagogical research at Rice (Figure 1). Of particular note is the large number of publications since the introduction of the CTE's Umbrella IRB protocol in 2017-2018.
The majority of studies employed quantitative methods, followed by qualitative and mixed-methods approaches (Figure 2). Several recurring themes emerged. In addition to numerous articles on discipline-specific courses, content, and instructional practices, the most common cross-disciplinary themes included active learning, the use of technology, communication, teamwork, and measurement/assessment.
Furthermore, results indicated a growing engagement across various disciplines, with Chemistry leading in contributions, followed by Professional disciplines (e.g., business and medical education), BioSciences, and other STEM fields including collaborations (Figure 3). Over 15 departments were represented in this collection, pointing to the broad scope of faculty involvement in pedagogical research. Additional analyses, including numbers of department-level publications, can be found in the PSP presentation on this project.
Summary
Pedagogical research has become increasingly prevalent at Rice during the past 25 years, with faculty and others publishing rigorous scholarship on innovations in teaching and learning, including at least 79 journal articles. The umbrella IRB protocol has supported Rice pedagogical projects, which embrace a wide variety of methods, topics, and disciplines.
This work represents a snapshot of the larger landscape of Rice educational publications. If you notice that your work has been omitted from this collection and would like for it to be included, please submit your work's DOI to our database by updating your profile!