Examining the “narrow” and “expansive” socio-technical imaginaries influencing college students’ collaborative reasoning about a design scenario
- Conference
- Location
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Minneapolis, MN
- Publication Date
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August 23, 2022
- Start Date
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June 26, 2022
- End Date
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June 29, 2022
- Conference Session
- Page Count
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31
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--41422
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/41422
- Download Count
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841
Paper Authors
Jennifer Radoff University of Maryland College Park
Jennifer Radoff is an assistant research professor at the University of Maryland in College Park. She studies teaching and learning in K-16 STEM, with a focus on the interaction of conceptual, epistemological, and affective dynamics of learning amidst cultural and ideological landscapes. She supports educators as they work to create more equitable opportunities for students’ disciplinary engagement.
Chandra Turpen University of Maryland College Park
Fatima Abdurrahman University of Maryland College Park
The central thread of my education over the past decade has been physics and astronomy; I earned undergraduate degrees in both at the University of Maryland, followed by a Masters and PhD in astrophysics at UC Berkeley. In that time, I published original research in a range of sub-disciplines, including instrumentation of adaptive optics systems for ground-based telescopes, and the detection of isolated, stellar mass black holes. For my doctoral thesis, I conducted a study on the experiences non-white, non-male PhD candidates in astronomy across the US to understand the relationship between the culture of academic astronomy and the persistence of identity-based inequity in graduate programs. This work (which was inspired by my own experiences as a graduate student in astronomy) built upon my background in physics education research from my undergraduate days, when I began working as a Learning Assistant (LA) with Dr. Chandra Turpen. My experience as an LA introduced me to PER, and gave me the opportunity to get involved in curriculum design and research as an undergraduate. After my PhD, I returned to Dr. Turpen’s group as a postdoctoral researcher, and have since redirected my focus to the study of ethics and institutional change in STEM higher education.
Danjing Chen University of Maryland College Park
Danjing Chen is a mechanical engineering major at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has been involved with the College Park Scholars Science, Technology, and Society program, and Engineers Without Borders.
David Tomblin University of Maryland College Park
Amol Agrawal
Amol Agrawal is an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, hoping to graduate with a dual degree in Civil Engineering and Communication, specializing in transportation and project management and political communication and public advocacy respectively. Within engineering, his interests primarily lie in mathematical modeling, flow properties, and engineering ethics. Issues that are important to him include include infrastructure, constitutionalism, and non-traditional communication methods.
Sona Chudamani
Sona Chudamani is a sophomore computer science major in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a teaching assistant for Girls Who Code, a program working to close the gender gap in technology, and a staff writer for QUESTPress, a newspaper in the Smith School of Business. She hopes to combine her passions for business, technology, and ethics, to make the technology industry more equitable.
Abstract
Many studies show that college engineering students’ sense of ethical and social responsibility declines over the course of their college careers (Cech, 2014; Canny & Bielefeldt, 2015; Schiff et al., 2021). One reason is that many college engineering programs and courses reinforce the social-technical dualism, which treats social and macro-ethical issues as distinct from the technical work more often associated with “real” engineering. Some programs, like the Science, Technology and Society (STS) program at [institution made confidential for review], attempt to challenge this dualism by supporting the integration of social and technical considerations within students’ design work and by asking students to grapple with the complex ethics of their work. However, this program is still embedded within a department, university, and society that subscribes to harmful ideologies such as technocracy, capitalism, and meritocracy, which value efficiency, surveillance, and control.
These ideologies and their associated values constrain the imagination for what is possible in design work, for instance, by relying on technological ‘quick fixes’ to address complex social problems or by propping up large corporations as innovators, without adequately grappling with the harm that these corporations might be doing. This cultural reality creates an uphill battle for educators attempting to support engineering students’ sense of social consciousness and ethical responsibility. Thus, this study attempts to understand how engineering students’ imaginations are being constrained by societal structures and ideologies and when do they “break free” from these constraints?
In this paper, we present a preliminary analysis of first-year STS students collaboratively reasoning through a simulated design scenario about a small community store facing challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic (adapted from Gupta, 2017). Using discourse and narrative analysis, we analyzed multiple focus group interviews to identify what we call “co-occurrences,” or ideas that tend to hang together in participants’ reasoning. Examining these co-occurrences provides insight into the variety of ways socio-technical imaginaries play out in students’ design thinking.
Radoff, J., & Turpen, C., & Abdurrahman, F., & Chen, D., & Tomblin, D., & Agrawal, A., & Chudamani, S. (2022, August), Examining the “narrow” and “expansive” socio-technical imaginaries influencing college students’ collaborative reasoning about a design scenario Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41422
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