Introducing Actor–Network Theory via the Engineering Sophomore Year
Introducing Actor–Network Theory via the Engineering Sophomore Year
复制标题
通过工程大二引入参与者网络理论
DOI：
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发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
D. Knight
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Janet Y. Tsai;Daria A. Kotys;D. Knight
The second year or sophomore year of most 4-year engineering undergraduate programs includes completion of the final fundamental math and science courses required for an engineering degree. We believe the intensive examination of this critical year in undergraduate engineering education is warranted, and advocate for a new perspective in analyzing the social and cultural environments of gateway engineering mathematics courses of the sophomore year specifically Calculus 3 for Engineers and Differential Equations & Linear Algebra. Our study seeks to identify how students connect to various resources, peers, and content and to what effect as they navigate the curriculum of these high-stakes prerequisites for subsequent major-specific coursework. We study ethnographically the experiences of undergraduate students, graduate student teaching assistants, and faculty instructional staff as they traverse these courses, in order to map out the social and cultural terrain upon which learning, status, and grades are negotiated. Inspired by a novel theory from Science and Technology Studies (STS), we take an actornetwork view of sophomore engineering, tracing connections between human actors and nonhuman elements including mathematical concepts, places, objects, and resources to demonstrate how students are translated to varying degrees through sophomore mathematics courses into actor-networks of engineering. Actor-Network Theory encourages a fresh perspective of sophomore engineering that affords researchers a systems-level view of these critical gateway courses and suggests fundamental questions regarding the nature of our courses and how they got this way in the first place. This paper introduces Actor-Network Theory and the four moments of translation, describes the methods for our research study of sophomore engineers as informed by Actor-Network Theory, and provides justification for the use of this novel social theory in engineering education research. Introduction and Research Purpose The sophomore, or second year, is a critical period of development for an engineering student. The sophomore year curriculum consists of the final math and science requirements for all engineering disciplines. Students who have difficulty with or fail a fundamental class during their first two years can seriously delay their graduation date or be discouraged from finishing the degree. Such experiences are known to dissuade students and have been correlated with early departure from engineering majors. Data from our local site indicate that 82% of engineering students return for the second year, while only about 69% continue into the third year, while there is a much smaller attrition rate between the third and fourth years (see Figure 1). National data on engineering student retention is typically reported for students persisting until the eighth semester, and has been shown to range from 38% to 52% across a range of institutions. Consequently, direct comparisons between the local site and national averages are not possible.
