Board 314: Initial Explorations to Understand How Our Research Teams Think About Knowledge and Make Research Decisions

Courtney June Faber; Lorna Treffert; Isabel Anne Boyd; Alexis Gillmore

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Tagged Topic: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/46893

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Paper Authors

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Courtney June Faber University at Buffalo, The State University of New York orcid.org/0000-0001-9156-7616

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Courtney Faber, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo (UB). Prior to joining UB in August of 2023, she was a Research Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Engineering Fundamentals at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She was also the Director of the Fundamentals of Engineering and Computing Teaching in Higher Education Certificate Program. Her research focuses on empowering engineering education scholars to be more effective at impacting transformational change in engineering and developing educational experiences that consider epistemic thinking. She develops and uses innovative research methods that allow for deep investigations of constructs such as epistemic thinking, identity, and agency. Dr. Faber has a B.S. in Bioengineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education from Clemson University and a M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University. Among other awards for her research, she was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2022 to study epistemic negotiations on interdisciplinary engineering education research teams.

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Lorna Treffert University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

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Lorna Treffert is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in the Engineering Education Department at the University at Buffalo. She holds both a BS and MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Her research interests include facilitating diversity and inclusion within engineering education, helping create authentic research experiences for undergraduate researchers, and applications of operations research in an education context.

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Isabel Anne Boyd University of Tennessee, Knoxville orcid.org/0000-0002-6244-9335

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Isabel recently graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville earning her Bachelor's of Science in Biomedical Engineering with Honors. She has assisted with several qualitative and mixed-methods research projects centered around diversity and inclusion in engineering. She will begin a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering with a focus on Engineering Education at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Fall 2024.

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Alexis Gillmore University of Tennessee at Knoxville orcid.org/0000-0001-8042-5620

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Alexis is a PhD student in soil science - they also teach interdisciplinary senior design and are pursuing a certificate in engineering education. Alexis is interested in developing participatory research strategies to make scientific knowledge that is useful and usable to those who need it.

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Abstract

Engineering education strives to transform the field of engineering by integrating research and practice. These efforts often involve groups of individuals from fields such as engineering, sociology, and psychology and from different roles within a university (e.g., faculty, administration, student support staff). Each of these team members bring their own approaches to the generation, expression, and application of knowledge. These differences in thinking are key to the success of engineering education; however, they create tensions that prevent many groups from achieving their core goals. These tensions are often associated with ineffective communication or project management, which overlooks the more fundamental differences around what counts as knowledge and how knowledge is generated. Accordingly, the purpose of this project is to improve the effectiveness of engineering education research groups striving to make transformative change in engineering. To meet this goal, we are using an integrated research and education plan to investigate the culture within which engineering education groups generate and apply knowledge to develop a deep understanding of how researchers negotiate differences in how group members think. We are exploring how both individuals and groups approach the generation, application, and expression of knowledge through a multimethod research approach that integrates an ethnographic case study (Phase A) with approaches from grounded theory (Phase B). The core outcome of these two phases will be a conceptual model that incorporates epistemic culture and individual’s negotiation of epistemic identities within engineering education research teams. Throughout the project, the research is being integrated with the education plan through a translation plan (Phase C) that includes a series of workshops. The poster presented will provide an overview of our current work during Phases A and C of this four phase project. We are currently conducting the first phase of the research, which is an ethnographic study of a research group. We have also conducted one exploratory workshop that was designed to get feedback on our early findings and inform our development of interview and ethnographic questions. Thus far, the ethnographic study has involved observations of group meetings that occurred across two different engineering education research teams. Our preliminary analysis revealed multiple instances of epistemic and nearly epistemic negotiations. The epistemic negotiations involved conversations about specific project decisions during which different views about research goals and approaches were discussed and interacted with by members of the team in a productive manner. The nearly epistemic negotiations included conversations that stemmed from a question rooted in research goals or approaches but did not involve individuals interacting with one another’s ideas. Both types of negotiations are being analyzed using Longino’s Critical Contextual Empiricism framework that defines the norms for an idealized knowledge generating community. Through this analysis, we are identifying the role that venues, uptake of critiques, standards, and intellectual “status” have in epistemic negotiations. For example, we have observed how the venue teams construct for their meetings influence the type of conversations that the team has and how much interaction with one another’s ideas occurs. Our first exploratory workshop, conducted at a meeting for interdisciplinary engineering education projects, revealed the ways that faculty on these teams think about knowledge. For many participants, the idea of knowledge was deeply connected to institutional definitions (e.g., publications). Additionally, we have tentatively added to Longino’s framework to capture ideas that were brought up during the workshop that are specifically relevant for engineering education teams, such as the power that comes with specific disciplines and institutions. As we continue this work, we will further explore these initial ideas through our ethnographic and grounded theory studies.

Citation
Format

Faber, C. J., & Treffert, L., & Boyd, I. A., & Gillmore, A. (2024, June), Board 314: Initial Explorations to Understand How Our Research Teams Think About Knowledge and Make Research Decisions Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/46893

TY - CPAPER
AB - Engineering education strives to transform the field of engineering by integrating research and practice. These efforts often involve groups of individuals from fields such as engineering, sociology, and psychology and from different roles within a university (e.g., faculty, administration, student support staff). Each of these team members bring their own approaches to the generation, expression, and application of knowledge. These differences in thinking are key to the success of engineering education; however, they create tensions that prevent many groups from achieving their core goals. These tensions are often associated with ineffective communication or project management, which overlooks the more fundamental differences around what counts as knowledge and how knowledge is generated. Accordingly, the purpose of this project is to improve the effectiveness of engineering education research groups striving to make transformative change in engineering.

To meet this goal, we are using an integrated research and education plan to investigate the culture within which engineering education groups generate and apply knowledge to develop a deep understanding of how researchers negotiate differences in how group members think. We are exploring how both individuals and groups approach the generation, application, and expression of knowledge through a multimethod research approach that integrates an ethnographic case study (Phase A) with approaches from grounded theory (Phase B). The core outcome of these two phases will be a conceptual model that incorporates epistemic culture and individual’s negotiation of epistemic identities within engineering education research teams. Throughout the project, the research is being integrated with the education plan through a translation plan (Phase C) that includes a series of workshops.

The poster presented will provide an overview of our current work during Phases A and C of this four phase project. We are currently conducting the first phase of the research, which is an ethnographic study of a research group. We have also conducted one exploratory workshop that was designed to get feedback on our early findings and inform our development of interview and ethnographic questions.

Thus far, the ethnographic study has involved observations of group meetings that occurred across two different engineering education research teams. Our preliminary analysis revealed multiple instances of epistemic and nearly epistemic negotiations. The epistemic negotiations involved conversations about specific project decisions during which different views about research goals and approaches were discussed and interacted with by members of the team in a productive manner. The nearly epistemic negotiations included conversations that stemmed from a question rooted in research goals or approaches but did not involve individuals interacting with one another’s ideas. Both types of negotiations are being analyzed using Longino’s Critical Contextual Empiricism framework that defines the norms for an idealized knowledge generating community. Through this analysis, we are identifying the role that venues, uptake of critiques, standards, and intellectual “status” have in epistemic negotiations. For example, we have observed how the venue teams construct for their meetings influence the type of conversations that the team has and how much interaction with one another’s ideas occurs.

Our first exploratory workshop, conducted at a meeting for interdisciplinary engineering education projects, revealed the ways that faculty on these teams think about knowledge. For many participants, the idea of knowledge was deeply connected to institutional definitions (e.g., publications). Additionally, we have tentatively added to Longino’s framework to capture ideas that were brought up during the workshop that are specifically relevant for engineering education teams, such as the power that comes with specific disciplines and institutions. As we continue this work, we will further explore these initial ideas through our ethnographic and grounded theory studies.
AU - Courtney June Faber
AU - Lorna Treffert
AU - Isabel Anne Boyd
AU - Alexis Gillmore
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Board 314: Initial Explorations to Understand How Our Research Teams Think About Knowledge and Make Research Decisions
UR - https://peer.asee.org/46893
ER -