Collaborative Research: Student Perspectives on Researcher Identity and Transformed Epistemologies (SPRITE)

本科生研究经验（URE）计划对学生理解科学的本质，动机和学习成绩有积极的影响。然而，很少有人了解URES如何影响学生的研究观点，他们的身份作为研究人员，他们对工程知识的信念。调查学生的研究人员身份和信念的知识（认识信念）的上下文中的URE是很重要的，因为他们塑造了学生的看法，价值观和与他人的互动，然后可以转化为他们的类和未来的职业生涯。这项研究的成果有助于开发有意义的方式，让学生参与，功能，并在研究空间以及教室和实验室学习。研究结果还扩大了理论的方式，是特定于工程领域的身份和认识信念。该项目的目标是解决生产工程师的挑战，这些工程师有能力解决复杂，不明确和开放式的问题，类似于做研究时遇到的问题。这些结果使工程教育工作者能够提供新颖的教育经验，培养学生成为未来的研究人员和工程师，使这些经验产生长期影响。该项目的更广泛的影响包括工程以外的领域的好处，让学生参与研究。此外，通过将不同的学生群体纳入研究，可以更深入地了解来自不同背景、工程领域和机构类型的学生如何体验和受益于参与研究。本项目的首要研究问题是：工科本科生如何发展他们作为研究人员的身份，以及他们通过研究经验了解工程的方式？ 该项目有四个具体目标。首先是了解本科工程专业的学生如何概念化和构建成为研究人员的意义。二是探讨学生认为影响其研究者身份发展的因素。第三是了解这些学生如何描述了解他们领域的东西意味着什么。第四是了解学生在研究经历中如何形成他们对知识和认识本质的信念。一个扎根的理论方法是用来扩大现有的身份和认识的信念框架，在工程的研究经验的背景下发展的理论。研究分三个阶段进行，采用开放式调查和访谈，以确定符合研究目标的主题，并可用于举办讲习班。该项目的智力价值在于根据学生对知识方式的信念和他们作为研究人员的身份，开发出一种工程专用的学习理论。该理论用于为工程教育工作者提供信息并与他们合作，寻找将研究成果应用于工程学位课程和URE的方法。 工程教育工作者研讨会的重点是如何将URES的各个方面，帮助建立学生的认识方式和他们的身份，作为他们的研究社区和他们的工程领域的参与者。

Undergraduate Research Experience (URE) programs have positive effects on student understanding of the nature of science, motivation, and academic performance. However, little is understood about how UREs affect students' views of research, their identities as researchers, and their beliefs about knowledge in engineering. Investigating students' researcher identities and beliefs about knowledge (epistemic beliefs) in the context of URE is important because they shape the students' perceptions, values, and interactions with others, which can then be translated to their classes and future careers. The outcomes of this study help develop meaningful ways for students to engage, function, and learn in research spaces as well as classrooms and laboratories. Findings also expand theories about identity and epistemic beliefs in ways that are specific to engineering fields. The goal of the project is to address the challenge of producing engineers who are well-equipped to tackle complex, ill-defined, and open-ended problems similar to those encountered when doing research. The results enable engineering educators to provide novel educational experiences, developing students as future researchers and engineers such that these experiences will have long term impacts. The project's broader impacts include benefits to fields beyond engineering that engage students in research. Also, by including diverse student populations in the study, a deeper understanding is gained about how students from different backgrounds, engineering fields, and types of institutions experience and benefit from participating in research.The overarching research question for this project is: How do undergraduate engineering students develop their identities as researchers and their ways of knowing engineering through research experiences? There are four specific aims of this project. The first is to understand how undergraduate engineering students conceptualize and construct what it means to be a researcher. The second is to discover what factors the students think affect their researcher identity development. The third is to find out how these students describe what it means to know something in their fields. The fourth is to understand how students form their beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing during research experiences. A grounded theory approach is used to expand existing identity and epistemic belief frameworks to develop a theory within the context of research experiences in engineering. The three-phase study uses open-ended surveys and interviews to identify themes that answer the research aims and can be used to develop workshops. The intellectual merit of the project lies in developing an engineering-specific learning theory based on students' beliefs about ways of knowing and their identities as researchers. This theory is used to inform and work with engineering educators to find ways to apply research findings in engineering degree programs and UREs. Workshops for engineering educators focus on ways to incorporate the aspects of UREs that help build students' ways of knowing and their identities as participants in their research communities and their engineering fields.