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Impact of Math Science Partnership Work of Higher Education Faculty

Abstract

This paper addresses the following claim(s):

"Previous studies within this research supplement have explored the hypothesis that engagement by higher education faculty in K-16 partnerships through various mechanisms may also have a pushback effect on the professors' academic lives - most specifically their teaching, their research and their disciplinary knowledge. While the impact of K-16 partnership work is not limited to MSPs (Pomeroy and Rui, 2009), the potential for this kind of bidirectional impact may be highest in partnerships such as the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Math Science Partnership (MSP) program. Each of the aforementioned studies was limited by a small sample
size or low response rate. To explore the hypothesis as it may relate to all faculty involved in MSPs, the authors were able to collaborate with Westat on their annual survey, which is required of all participating faculty members. The contribution of this particular study is that it includes all 605 MSP higher education faculty members who responded.

Thanks to data-sharing by Westat, this study explores the possibility of relationships between impact and faculty characteristics such as: field of teaching, field of research, rank, type of institution and number of hours of engagement in the MSP during the survey year. The study is limited, however, in several ways: a) it does not identify or examine the relationship between type of MSP or type of faculty engagement and impact; b) it covers only one year (2008) of data collection thereby potentially missing the impact of engagement that might have occurred in previous years; and c) because the questions were embedded in the much broader Westat survey, there was no opportunity for more in-depth probes concerning impact."