Chapter 6: Collaborative data Inquiry for Program Improvement: Shifting From External to Internal Motivations and Processes

This chapter presents the implementation story of school-wide data collection, analysis, and inquiry projects for program and curriculum improvement in the School of Teacher Education, one of two schools in the University of Wyoming’s (UW) College of Education (CoE). After providing a contextual and historical overview of the UW CoE and other involved entities, the authors present an accreditation cycle and faculty learning community shift from an externally mandated, centralized data collection process to one that is engaged, internally motivated, includes repeated full-inquiry cycles and focuses on improving the quality of program completers to best meet the needs of stakeholders. The discussion of this shift includes external versus internal motivators, development of conflict management spaces and techniques, and the use of our model to promote discussion among stakeholders. Finally, the authors address the future of our work, as well as potential recommendations for other faculty learning communities that are engaged in similar projects, including adjusting the data collection mindset, using a framework for improvement, and continually refining and improving data collection tools.