Forms of participation in an engineering maker‐based inquiry in physics

Abstract

This article discusses a case study of a pair of students mentored by a physics teacher as they engaged in a long‐term (15 months) engineering maker‐based inquiry (EMBI), a mandatory part of these students' formal learning of physics at the advanced high school level. We conceptualize the students' engagement as participating in a particular figured world, which is distinct from the figured world of authentic scientific inquiry. Using fine‐grained discourse analysis of mentor–mentee interactions in authentic working sessions, complemented by interviews and other ethnographic accounts, we: (a) characterize this figured world; (b) identify central legitimate forms of participation that were enacted by the students and influenced their learning; (c) articulate how these forms of participation were socially communicated, constructed, and enforced over time in the interaction between the two students and the educational staff; and (d) examine how these forms of participation facilitated (or impaired) the learning of content and practices of the related physics. Two legitimate forms of participation, which contributed extensively to the EMBI's goal of creating a working artifact, are discussed in detail. The analysis articulates the social construction of these forms of participation and shows that (a) participating as an engineer facilitated many foundational aspects of learning of physics, (b) participating as a technician fostered a sense of agency and efficacy with regard to physics in a student who did not find ways to express himself in the regular physics classroom; however, it did not facilitate the learning of scientific content and practices. The implications for the instruction of physics in school, particularly given recent calls for integrated STEM education and Making in education, are discussed.

Engineers, figuring it out: Collaborative learning in cultural worlds

“…Engineering World manifested in the students' more distributed and supportive participation in the task and also provided opportunities for students to both practice being engineers and to experience more diverse ways to contribute to engineering work. This study adds to previous work on engineering identity formation (Claussen et al, 2023;Kapon et al, 2021;Stevens et al, 2008;Tonso, 2006) in exploring means to support equitable access to engineering identities. In the future, we intend to investigate the tensions and issues that arise when these tasks are integrated throughout the curriculum.…”

“…This transition occurs in and through interactions in the social contexts of engineering work. To the extent that the work encountered in engineering school has goals consistent with those of real‐world engineering, students have opportunities to position themselves and be positioned as engineers, facilitating learning and identification with the discipline (Johri et al, 2011; Kapon et al, 2021). On the other hand, when the goal of classroom activity is to produce a predetermined correct answer to a problem, group work may organize itself around the most expedient path to that answer.…”

The reification of identity narratives in teacher–student discourse during an inquiry project

“…She is a secular Israeli Jew. Kapon has been collaborating with the Acheret Center since 2015 (Kapon, 2016; Kapon et al, 2016, 2021; Kapon & Schvartzer, 2018, 2023). This study is part of a larger research project which Kapon has been leading in the Acheret Center, with the overarching goal of understanding how students' learning and the way they perceive their inquiry at the macro‐ and microlevels are related to the characteristics of the mentorship they receive and the features of the social infrastructure in which this mentorship is embedded.…”

“…Fine-grained discourse analysis informed by sociolinguistic approaches (Goffman, 1974(Goffman, , 1981Gordon, 2015;Tannen & Wallat, 1987) was employed to identify frames of participation, and related alignments, positionings, and power relations. Footings were identified in the participants' speech, prosody, and gesture, using Kapon et al's (2021) operationalization as "an instance of an explication of alignment expressed by one of the interlocutors, either regarding the speaker, other interlocutors or the activity" (p. 256-258). Specifically, each turn was read word by word, sentence by sentence, with attention to the specific selection of words, as well as the speaker's prosody, gestures, and other nonlinguistic registers.…”

The research trends and contributions of science education during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A narrative systematic literature review of publications in selected journals

“…To answer the third research question, direct contributions are based on content analysis of the 14 papers published in the three journals between 2020 and 2021 that mention COVID-19, as shown in Figure 5. To facilitate analysis, the 14 papers are grouped based on similarity in content into four operational categories, namely: technological and pedagogical -2019(baseline) 2020 knowledge (TPK), content and context knowledge (CCK), futuristic education (FE) and mobility programmes (MP). Furthermore, the four categories are synthesised into a main code based on similarity in meaning.…”