Jonathan Lashley, along with David Ernst (University of Minnesota) and D. Matthew Boyer (Clemson University), presented “The Merits of Keeping Closed: Profiles of Faculty Who Purposefully Chose Not to Adopt Open Textbooks” at the Open Education Conference Oct. 10-12 in Niagara Falls, NY.
Lashley facilitated a panel in which attendees provided speculative theories about the characteristics of the faculty he studied. This session recounted his current research about a specific faculty population that is important to the open education community, as well as those of who train and support educators for a living. These instructors attended a comprehensive training about open textbooks, reviewed a textbook for the open textbook library in most cases and indicated that they were not interested in adopting open textbooks in their courses. Lashley interviewed 10 faculty members from institutions across the U.S. and analyzed how their values, attitudes and beliefs guided their sense of identity as education professionals.
Never before has a study empirically sought to understand the motivating values of this population of non-users, and Lashley’s findings make a case for empathy-first faculty development strategies that harbor implications for training instructors on any pedagogical or technological intervention. This study constitutes Lashley’s doctoral research that he will be defending next month as a candidate for Clemson University’s Ph.D. in Learning Sciences.