(581b) How Do Engineering Faculty Enact Change? a Model for Understanding and Supporting Instructional Transformation

As chemical engineering educators face increasing expectations to incorporate social responsibility, inclusive practices, and pedagogical innovation into the curriculum, new models are needed to understand how faculty navigate and lead these instructional shifts. This study introduces the Transformational Agency Ecosystem Model (TAEM, pronounced T–A–Em), a theory-informed model developed to explore how engineering faculty enact and sustain pedagogical change across nested ecological systems. TAEM integrates Transformational Agency Theory (Bajaj, 2018) with Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) to conceptualize faculty change as both relational and context-dependent.

TAEM is being developed through a multi-phase, qualitative study involving chemical engineering faculty participating in a structured, virtual Community of Practice (CoP) to improve instructional practices in topics related to social responsibility. This presentation focuses on two guiding research questions: (1) How does transformational agency manifest among faculty within a CoP? and (2) What organizational and systemic factors influence their ability to enact agency? Rich, longitudinal data were collected through three semi-structured interviews with each participant over an eight-month period. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021), combining deductive coding based on theoretical constructs from Transformational Agency Theory and Ecological Systems Theory, with inductive coding to identify emergent patterns and meanings across faculty narratives. This dual approach enabled us to trace the development of faculty agency over time while remaining open to unanticipated influences embedded in participants’ institutional and professional contexts.

Preliminary findings informed the development of the TAEM by revealing that faculty experienced all four dimensions of transformational agency—sustained, relational, coalitional, and strategic—throughout their participation in the CoP. These manifestations were deeply shaped by contextual factors at multiple ecological levels, including interpersonal reflection, peer engagement, departmental culture, institutional expectations, and broader disciplinary norms. The structured Community of Practice, situated within the AIChE Education Division, served as a critical mesosystem-level space where professional learning, collaboration, and identity development could occur across institutions. This theory-building work contributes to engineering education by offering a systems-aware model for understanding and supporting faculty change. For chemical engineering educators and professional societies like AIChE, the TAEM provides practical insight into how intentionally designed peer networks and supportive ecosystems can empower faculty to lead meaningful instructional transformation within their classrooms, departments, and disciplines.