How Writing for the Public Provides Affordances and Constraints in Enacting Expert Identity for Undergraduate Engineering Students

Mathew D. Evans; Michelle Jordan

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Conference: 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Tampa, Florida
Publication Date: June 15, 2019
Start Date: June 15, 2019
End Date: June 19, 2019
Conference Session: Liberal Education/Engineering & Society Division Technical Session 4
Tagged Division: Liberal Education/Engineering & Society
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 18
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--32904
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/32904
Download Count: 492

Paper Authors

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Mathew D. Evans Arizona State University

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Mathew D Evans is currently a doctoral candidate at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University

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biography

Michelle Jordan Arizona State University

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Michelle Jordan is as associate professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. She also serves as the Education Director for the QESST Engineering Research Center. Michelle’s program of research focuses on social interactions in collaborative learning contexts. She is particularly interested in how students navigate communication challenges as they negotiate complex engineering design projects. Her scholarship is grounded in notions of learning as a social process, influenced by complexity theories, sociocultural theories, sociolinguistics, and the learning sciences.

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Abstract

While engineering education scholars continue to push for undergraduate writing instruction to align with professional genres (Yoritomo, Turnipseed, & Cooper, 2018), the science communication field argues that STEM programs should also train students to be adept at writing to engage the public as a way to enact identities as experts in their field (Baram-Tsabari & Lewenstein). However, what shape such writing projects can take within engineering research programs and evidence that they support such learning goals is currently understudied. This qualitative discourse analytic study explored what affordances and constraints a writing for public communication project offers undergraduates working to enact engineering identities. We explored two research questions: RQ1: In what ways and to what degree of success did the authors (undergraduate engineering students) position themselves as engineering researchers and engineers through their texts? RQ2: To what extent did students value writing for the public? Fourteen diverse undergraduate students took part in an intensive summer program in photovoltaic solar energy engineering research at a university in southwestern US. In parallel with their lab research projects, participants took part in a writing project to share their knowledge of solar cell manufacturing and research with the public. Challenged to communicate their new PV knowledge using a medium and genre of their choice, two students contributed to Wikipedia entries, one wrote an essay for the social media platform Reddit, and other students completed various YouTube videos and other projects. Presumably, contributing to such public platforms allows students to take on the role of expert as well as recontextualize engineering knowledge for the public (Myers, 2003).

The student writing projects were analyzed using discourse analysis (Gee & Green, 2010) and multimodal analysis (Jewitt & Oyama, 2001) to examine how students enacted positions through roles and relationships vis-a-vis the reader, and the extent to which they were successful in their positioning (RQ1). We also examined the response of the community as further evidence of success. Post-project interviews were coded through thematic analysis (Saldana, 2015) (RQ2).

Analysis of artifacts suggests that students enacted the role of expert and related to audiences from places of authority about engineering research and PV manufacturing. Moreover, they re-contextualized engineering discourse into public discourse, and used academic talk moves, such as hedging, to express degrees of certainty. Analysis of post-project interviews indicated that students overall found communicating with the public a worthwhile endeavor and an important part of their program experience. The longer paper expands on these findings and make recommendations for practice, and implications for public communicative platforms.

Citation
Format

Evans, M. D., & Jordan, M. (2019, June), How Writing for the Public Provides Affordances and Constraints in Enacting Expert Identity for Undergraduate Engineering Students Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32904

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - While engineering education scholars continue to push for undergraduate writing instruction to align with professional genres (Yoritomo, Turnipseed, &amp; Cooper, 2018), the science communication field argues that STEM programs should also train students to be adept at writing to engage the public as a way to enact identities as experts in their field (Baram-Tsabari &amp; Lewenstein). However, what shape such writing projects can take within engineering research programs and evidence that they support such learning goals is currently understudied. This qualitative discourse analytic study explored what affordances and constraints a writing for public communication project offers undergraduates working to enact engineering identities. We explored two research questions:
RQ1: In what ways and to what degree of success did the authors (undergraduate engineering students) position themselves as engineering researchers and engineers through their texts?         	
RQ2: To what extent did students value writing for the public?
 
Fourteen diverse undergraduate students took part in an intensive summer program in photovoltaic solar energy engineering research at a university in southwestern US. In parallel with their lab research projects, participants took part in a writing project to share their knowledge of solar cell manufacturing and research with the public. Challenged to communicate their new PV knowledge using a medium and genre of their choice, two students contributed to Wikipedia entries, one wrote an essay for the social media platform Reddit, and other students completed various YouTube videos and other projects. Presumably, contributing to such public platforms allows students to take on the role of expert as well as recontextualize engineering knowledge for the public (Myers, 2003).

The student writing projects were analyzed using discourse analysis (Gee &amp; Green, 2010) and multimodal analysis (Jewitt &amp; Oyama, 2001) to examine how students enacted positions through roles and relationships vis-a-vis the reader, and the extent to which they were successful in their positioning (RQ1). We also examined the response of the community as further evidence of success. Post-project interviews were coded through thematic analysis (Saldana, 2015) (RQ2).

Analysis of artifacts suggests that students enacted the role of expert and related to audiences from places of authority about engineering research and PV manufacturing. Moreover, they re-contextualized engineering discourse into public discourse, and used academic talk moves, such as hedging, to express degrees of certainty. Analysis of post-project interviews indicated that students overall found communicating with the public a worthwhile endeavor and an important part of their program experience. The longer paper expands on these findings and make recommendations for practice, and implications for public communicative platforms.
AU  - Mathew D. Evans
AU  - Michelle Jordan
CY  - Tampa, Florida
DA  - 2019/06/15
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - How Writing for the Public Provides Affordances and Constraints in Enacting Expert Identity for Undergraduate Engineering Students
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/32904
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--32904
ER  -