Departmental Culture and Pedagogical Choices

Research on faculty adoption has recently explored preconditions and mechanisms that encourage computer science (CS) faculty to use student-centered teaching practices, especially those that support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Results have uncovered a complex web of experiences, social influences, and attitudes that promote or inhibit faculty adoption. However, much remains uncertain, including how perceptions of departmental culture influence an instructor's selection and usage of evidence-based pedagogical techniques. To investigate this line of inquiry, our study draws on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and survey data collected from 54 instructors who teach introductory computer science at 15 U.S. colleges and universities participating in a national study. Expanding prior work with data that investigated attitudes toward students and learning, in the presented paper, we answer two additional questions: 'What attitudes and beliefs do introductory CS instructors have about their computing departments' support for student-centered teaching and diversity initiatives?" and "How do these attitudes relate to introductory instructors' use of student- and instructor-centered teaching practices?" Results indicate that even though faculty believe their departmental cultures generally support DEI (though, more supportive of gender than race), and support students and community, we found no relationship with how faculty teach. We conclude by discussing implications of these results for DEI work and encouraging broader adoption of student-centered teaching in the CS higher education community.