Enhanced Learning in Undergraduate Education: A Research Communications Studio Model

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Objectives and Methods: The objectives of this project are to develop and to critically assess a novel Research Communications Studio model that is designed to improve learning, retention, and diversity of undergraduate engineering students. The project will provide much-needed data on how student learning is enhanced via hands-on research and interactions that take place within the studio group. In the Research Communications Studio (RCS), small groups of three to five undergraduate students, who are working on research with an engineering faculty, will meet under the mentorship of communications faculty and engineering graduate students. To ensure full integration of the model into the colleges program of research and instruction, the project will provide orientation for faculty/research directors and training for graduate student mentors. The RCS model focuses strongly on the students communications tasks, as assigned by their research directors. The RCS project emphasizes student participation in professional meetings where results of their undergraduate projects are presented. The studio enhances inquiry-based learning by making principles of research and communications explicit and by engaging students in reflection on those experiences. Assessment of the methodologies, results, and significance will be done by the South Carolina Office of Program Assessment. Assessment data will include measures of enrollment, persistence to graduation, interviews with faculty and students. Data will be collected for project participants as well as for a control group of non-participating undergraduate students.Intellectual Merit. The RCS project is predicated upon Vygotskian theories of guidedparticipation and distributed cognition, i.e. cognitive development of the engineering novice within groups or communities. The project explores three hypotheses related to the effect of studio methods of instruction on 1) quality of learning 2) retention and enrollment and 3) cognitive development and self-directed learning. The program evaluation component will furnish data to test the three hypotheses and the overall effectiveness of the RCS model, especially the use of communications, in cognitive development through research-based learning. The interdisciplinary project team includes engineering, communications, and education professionals. Their expertise spans chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineering, rhetoric, educational psychology, and interactive methods of teaching professional communications. Broader impacts. In an effort to recruit and retain more, and more diverse, undergraduate students, engineering colleges in research-intensive universities are expanding opportunities for undergraduates to conduct research with a faculty members group. However, better understanding of student cognitive development from this project is urgently needed to identify modes of mentoring and instruction that are effective in improving student learning, retention, and performance. Collaboration with the South Carolina Alliance for Minority Participation is designed to promote research participation by underrepresented minorities, and to provide data on whether minority performance and retention is improved via the RCS. The proposed RCS implementation plan conforms to the situations and constraints typical of a state-supported, research intensive engineering college. It should therefore be widely adaptable. Dissemination of results from the RCS project will occur in a variety of methods, most notably through two national workshops planned for years three and five.