Search for: All records

Traditional professional development (PD) often focuses solely on skills and knowledge, without explicitly attending to participants' sense of community. In this instrumental case study, we explore the impact of a community-building PD experience on an Emerging Discipline-Based Education Researcher's (EDBER's) sense of community. We center the experiences of one tenure-track faculty member, James (a pseudonym), who participated in a Professional Development for Emerging Education Researchers field school for EDBERs, an example of PD that intentionally attends to building community around research. We find that the PD experience contributed to building James' lasting of community in education research, and we call for more PD to shift towards being simultaneously skills-focused and community-focused. 

Newcomers to Discipline-based Education Research (DBER) face numerous challenges and supportive practices in becoming active members of their communities of practice. We present a framework for Montgomery’s groundskeeping leadership, which seeks to mitigate barriers and nurture community members for their growth and development (2020). We then apply that framework in the context of education researchers to examine some data from a set of interviews with Emerging Discipline-based Education Researchers. 

This study is situated within possible selves theory to explore how senior undergraduate students in STEM develop and envision their future possible selves after graduation. We interviewed students at an urban institution in the US and encouraged them to think about who they will be in the future associated with their future career choices. This study presents two case studies: Ricky and Francisco. These two students discuss a variety of academic contexts through which they negotiate and explore career-related possible selves: conferences, experiences from classes and research, maintained aspirations for science, and dissatisfaction with education from high school. However, we found that in some cases, academic contexts alone are not enough to help students develop future possible selves. Rather, they intersect with social contexts (social identity, out-of-school experiences) through which possible selves emerge. Our findings suggest that students might need more than just classroom-based lessons to explore their possible selves. Implications from this research can benefit the ongoing curriculum development aiming at increasing students’ interests in STEM-related careers and building a meaningful professional life after graduation. 

Purpose Personas are lifelike characters that are driven by potential or real users’ personal goals and experiences when interacting with a product. Personas support user-centered design by focusing on real users’ needs. However, the use of personas in educational research and design requires certain adjustments from its original use in human-computer interface design. This paper aims to propose a process of creating personas from phenomenographic studies, which helps us create data-grounded personas effectively. Design/methodology/approach Personas have features that can help address design problems in educational contexts. The authors compare the use of personas with other common methodologies in education research, including phenomenology and phenomenography. Then, this study presents a six-step process of building personas using phenomenographic study as follows: articulate a design problem, collect user data, assemble phenomenographic categories, build personas, check personas and solve the design problem using personas. The authors illustrate this process with two examples, including the redesign of a professional development website and an undergraduate research program design. Findings The authors find that personas are valuable tools for educational design websites and programs. Phenomenography can productively help educational designers and researchers build sets of personas following the process the authors propose. Originality/value The use and method of personas in educational contexts are scarce and vague. Using the example contexts, the authors provide educational designers and researchers a clear method of creating personas that are relatable and applicable for their design problems. 

DBER attracts many faculty from other STEM disciplines, and these faculty have little or no specific training in DBER. DBER requires a mastery of quantitative, qualitative, and/or mixed methodologies, and also a nuanced understanding of breadth of topic, research questions, and theoretical frameworks. This interdisciplinarity is particularly challenging for emerging DBER researchers who often switch into DBER with only discipline specific content and research training. As part of a large study about how STEM faculty become involved with DBER, we interviewed a number of emerging DBER faculty about their pathways into DBER. We conducted a thematic analysis of these interviews grounded in the theoretical frameworks of the reasoned action approach and conjecture mapping. Based on our analysis we identified 3 roles that support new faculty entering DBER. These roles are the peer, the subject matter expert, and the project manager. 

Abstract: We use the Adaptor-Innovator Theory and the Influence framework to interpret undergraduate physics laboratory students’ approaches to – and bids for – intellectual and directive authority. Students display behaviors that utilize structure and work within a defined system (adaptor) and, separately, behaviors that work outside the system (innovator), the latter often by engaging directly with equipment. Adaptors exhibit high authority by asserting experimental understanding, whereas innovators are attributed with high authority through their frequent, direct handling of the equipment. We interpret equitable collaborations as those in which students 1) have full access to the experimental or conversational floor adaptively or innovatively while being 2) acknowledged in their authority by their group. 

Abstract: We use the Adaptor-Innovator Theory and the Influence framework to interpret undergraduate physics laboratory students’ approaches to – and bids for – intellectual and directive authority. Students display behaviors that utilize structure and work within a defined system (adaptor) and, separately, behaviors that work outside the system (innovator), the latter often by engaging directly with equipment. Adaptors exhibit high authority by asserting experimental understanding, whereas innovators are attributed with high authority through their frequent, direct handling of the equipment. We interpret equitable collaborations as those in which students 1) have full access to the experimental or conversational floor adaptively or innovatively while being 2) acknowledged in their authority by their group.