The research communications studio as a tool for developing undergraduate researchers in engineering

The NSF-funded Research Communications Studio (RCS) project at the University of South Carolina, responding to groundbreaking theories in How People Learn, is among the first attempts to measure students’ responses to research-based learning in a distributed cognition environment. As an alternative to the unguided research scenario often encountered by part-time undergraduate researchers, the project provides a more structured environment in which contemporary constructivist learning theories are used to develop the research and communication skills of novice researchers. The undergraduate researchers meet weekly in small interdisciplinary studio groups to strengthen their research and communication skills. Their needs drive discussions that typically revolve around some form of a deliverable (i.e., poster, journal article, presentation) regarding the research in which they are involved. Fellow undergraduates assist each other with problems as part of a peer relationship, while graduate mentors from both engineering and English provide near-peer support. Communications specialists and the undergraduates’ research advisors confer regularly and provide faculty perspectives. The dynamics of the meetings reflect a team-centered approach, offering solutions that stem from a network of distributed cognition. The RCS is presented as an educational model that augments undergraduate research while supplementing classroom instruction. The research team has developed a multi-dimensional rubric and a coding system to quantify extensive qualitative data: student deliverables and videotapes of small group sessions. This paper focuses on the method for quantifying traditionally qualitative data, and, based on analyses of those data, reports progress undergraduates have made in their research learning through the distributed cognition environment of the RCS. The Research Communications Studio Approach The Research Communications Studio (RCS) is an innovative structure that integrates communications into the undergraduate research experience (http://www.che.sc.edu/centers/rcs/rcsmain.htm). In the RCS, small groups of undergraduates who are working on research with engineering faculty, meet weekly under the mentorship of communications faculty and engineering and English graduate students. In the studio, students discuss, write about, and present their research as it progresses. The studio approach provides an environment for constructivist learning practices. Through an inquiry-based learning approach, P ge 9.286.1 Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright  2004, American Society for Engineering Education principles of research and communications are made explicit, and students are engaged in reflecting on their own learning. As the students discuss, write about, reflect upon, and present their research, they learn how to communicate clearly. RCS activities enhance learning outcomes through intensive practice of communications. Figure 1 shows the interactive relationship among the interdisciplinary staff and undergraduates along with the connection of all participants to the engineering faculty members. Communication Faculty (1 per group) Engineering Graduate Student (1 per group) Communication Graduate Student (1 per group) Undergraduate Researchers (3 or 4 per group) Engineering Faculty (1 per Undergraduate Researcher) Studio Figure 1. The Studio is an environment of distributed cognition, in which thinking and learning processes are distributed across the network of participants. While each studio group has its own dynamics, the sessions have some elements in common. The staff encourages the students to take control of the discussion as much as possible. Staff-led discussions are most common in situations when the student seems to be unsure of what to do next, or has questions about best practices, such as effective information arrangement and design for posters, slide show presentations, and technical papers. In the Fall 2003 semester, for example, the RCS had three studio groups of four students, each of which met weekly for 75 minutes. In one group, all four undergraduates experienced problems with their research that kept them from moving forward for several weeks; as a result, this group spent more time than the other two on professional issues such as creating a resume and discussing what happens in a job interview. In another studio group, the majority of the focus was on written communication because the research advisor wanted the students to work on papers for publication. The third studio group had the most diverse mix of students with respect to the length and scope of their undergraduate research experiences. These students decided as a group to change the studio format; instead of a format that allowed each student’s research to receive an equal amount of time for presentation and discussion each week—typically about 15 minutes—the group opted to allow 30 minutes every other week for each student’s work. This kind of flexibility allows the studio to adhere to its mission of helping students increase their ability to communicate their research to a varied audience, in a variety of formats. The research associated with the RCS project investigates the role of communications in participants’ cognitive development by looking closely at what learners are doing in the learning P ge 9.286.2 Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright  2004, American Society for Engineering Education environment, in order to gain evidence of how learning can best be engineered. Data collected include students’ communications products in a variety of genres and media, analyzed via a rubric developed by the researchers. Also, RCS sessions are videotaped for studying the complex interactions that occur in this system of distributed cognition. The focus of the present paper is to describe coding techniques being developed to analyze these complex interactions in the small group sessions. The sections that follow describe a means of coding the qualitative data of the sessions to produce quantitative information that will allow for discovery of patterns of engagement. Eventually, these patterns will be used to identify events of distributed cognition. The Studio as a Distributed Cognition Environment Through the communications approach, the RCS seeks to enhance students’ cognitive development. Herbert Simon 9 points out that the basic principle of the enterprise of cognitive studies is that “learning takes place inside the learner and only inside the learner”. However, Simon also recognizes that “whether from books or people, at least 90% of what we have in our heads . . . is acquired by social processes, including watching others, listening to them, and reading their writings” 9 . The RCS takes into account this socially distributed nature of learning by building an optimal environment for research learning to occur. The learners’ knowledge construction process is aided by an environment of distributed cognition in which participants at all levels—experts, mentors, accomplished novices, and novices—teach and learn from each other 1 . The RCS addresses both the learners’ cognitive development and the development of communications abilities in a system of distributed cognition. Small groups provide an optimal environment for peers, near peer mentors, and communications faculty to interact through various modes of communicating. Speaking, writing, drawing, gesture, computer programs, etc. mediate individuals’ construction of knowledge. At the same time, these media represent knowledge externally for others, who can both provide feedback and use it in their own knowledge constructions. The process of constructing knowledge is enhanced by expert guidance and feedback as the learners work on increasingly challenging aspects of the research projects they are involved in with their research advisors. What learners can do initially with guidance from a more knowledgeable member of the discipline they can do later by themselves. The distance between what learners can do independently and their abilities to solve problems with guidance was conceptualized by Vygotsky 11 as the zone of proximal development. RCS groups provide a zone in which undergraduate engineering students from different engineering disciplines, graduate student mentors also from different engineering disciplines, graduate students from linguistics and English, and communications faculty all interact and learn from one another. This interaction occurs in a rich environment of advanced computer tools and all the possibilities of intellectual stimulation provided by a college of engineering. As the concept of “distributed cognition” takes into account the social, situational, and cultural nature of learning, cognition “does not have a single locus ‘inside’ the learner,” but instead is “jointly composed” 8 . However, we resist the extreme view that distributed cognition exists only in the group structure, and we believe that learning in this group context stimulates individual learning as well. Thus, use of small groups for creating a distributed learning environment P ge 9.286.3 Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright  2004, American Society for Engineering Education provides “a means to cultivate the individual’s competencies” 8 . The social practices that produce distributed cognition “can be said to leave cognitive residues in the form of improved competencies, which affect subsequent distributed activities” 8 . The RCS approach seeks to exploit group interactions to build knowledge constructions, which can then be internalized by individuals. This approach exemplifies Vygotsky’s contention that learning occurs from the outside in. 11 Methods for Quantifying Traditionally Quali