Using an integrative methods approach to research
academic development activities: A case example

Why do we do what we do? The goal of this session is to describe the range of ways in which we are researching the Course Design and Teaching Workshop (CDTW), in order to understand the powerful effects it appears to have on those who participate, and also to discover what it may fail to do. The CDTW has been offered (no cost, voluntary participation) principally in one Canadian university since the early 90s, but also in other Canadian universities (sometimes for a fee) as well as internationally. Like many academic developers, we have tracked participant satisfaction, which is consistently high. However, we have wanted a deeper understanding of what and how participants learn from the workshop. Therefore, using an integrative methods approach, we undertook a series of five complementary studies. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods for both data collection and analysis, we hope to develop a richer, more complex representation of the phenomenon. One study is examining the influence of beginning with disciplinary subject matter (data: interviews and related concept maps; analysis: open coding of transcripts and non-parametric statistics). Another is documenting participant use of workshop concepts (knowledge) and actual implementation (teaching actions) in voluntary follow up groups (data: participant observation notes, videotapes, course materials and syllabi; analysis: thematic analysis of notes, consensual open coding of videotapes, and non-parametric statistics). In the session, we will describe data collection and analysis strategies for all the studies, and explore the strengths and weaknesses of this research approach.