Debra Friedrichsen

From Dissemination to Propagation: A New Paradigm for Education Developers

• Scholarly studies and national reports document failure of current efforts to achieve broad, sustained adoption of research-based instructional practices, despite compelling bodies of evidence supporting efficacy of many of these practices. • A dissemination paradigm characterizes patterns of these current, failing efforts. Change agents, working within the dissemination paradigm, try to convince adopters that their innovations can help their students. • Alternatively, change agents, working within the propagation paradigm, engage with adopters early and often to understand their instructional systems and interactively develop a strong product adaptable to specific contexts. Jeffrey E. Froyd is a Research Professor at Texas A&M University. His research interests include sustained adoption of improvements in learning and teaching, systematic reviews in engineering education, evaluation of faculty campus climates, and assessment of complex learning outcomes.