Teaching Practices Inventory

The Teaching Practices Inventory (formerly called the "Teaching Practices Survey") was designed to characterize the teaching practices used in undergraduate science and mathematics courses. The inventory requires 10-15 minutes to fill out and provides a detailed characterization of practices used in all aspects of a "lecture" course (it is not suitable for use with courses that are primarily laboratories, seminars, or project courses). It was tested with several hundred faculty members at UBC and refined over a 6-year period.

Development paper (includes instrument and scoring info): The Teaching Practices Inventory: A New Tool for Characterizing College and University Teaching in Mathematics and Science, Carl Wieman and Sarah Gilbert, CBE-Life Sciences Education, Vol 13(3), pp. 552–569 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.14-02-0023.

More on the value of an instrument like this: A Better Way to Evaluate Undergraduate Teaching, Carl Wieman, Change, Vol. 47(1), pp. 6-15 (2015). DOI: 10.1080/00091383.2015.996077.

Inventory and scoring files (older versions at bottom of page):

CWSEI Teaching Practices Inventory (for natural and social sciences, updated Oct. 2018).

Teaching Practices Inventory Excel file to gauge the extent of use of research-based teaching practices (ETP) (updated Oct. 2018).

Teaching Practices Inventory in Qualtrics online survey format with ETP scoring embedded (updated Oct. 2018). Right-click and select "save link as".

Interested in filling out the inventory for a course you teach and gauge your extent of use of research-based teaching practices (ETP)?

» Fill out the inventory anonymously and see your ETP score

Example distribution of ETP scores for courses in a department:

For details on ETP scoring and research supporting it, see The Teaching Practices Inventory: A New Tool for Characterizing College and University Teaching in Mathematics and Science, Carl Wieman and Sarah Gilbert, CBE-Life Sciences Education, Vol 13(3), pp. 552–569 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.14-02-0023.

Adding open-ended questions:

Depending on the goals for using the Teaching Practices Inventory, open-ended questions can be added at the end of the inventory. For example, at UBC we added 3 questions:
    What do you see as the biggest barrier to achieving more effective student learning in the courses you teach?
    What changes could be made at UBC to help you teach more effectively?
    What changes could be made at UBC to increase your satisfaction/enjoyment of teaching?

Teaching Practices Inventory categories:

  1. Course information provided (including learning goals or outcomes)
  2. Supporting materials provided
  3. In class features and activities
  4. Assignments
  5. Feedback and testing
  6. Other (diagnostics, pre-post testing, new methods with measures, …)
  7. Training and guidance of teaching assistants
  8. Collaboration or sharing in teaching

Older versions of the TPI: