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

本科研究经验（URE）项目对学生对科学本质的理解、学习动机和学习成绩有积极的影响。然而，对于ureu如何影响学生对研究的看法、他们作为研究人员的身份以及他们对工程知识的信念，人们知之甚少。在URE的背景下调查学生的研究者身份和关于知识的信念（认知信念）是很重要的，因为它们塑造了学生的观念、价值观和与他人的互动，然后可以转化为他们的课堂和未来的职业生涯。本研究的结果有助于为学生在研究空间、教室和实验室中参与、发挥和学习提供有意义的方法。研究结果还以特定于工程领域的方式扩展了关于身份和认知信念的理论。该项目的目标是解决培养工程师的挑战，这些工程师能够处理复杂的、不明确的和开放式的问题，类似于在做研究时遇到的问题。研究结果使工程教育工作者能够提供新颖的教育体验，将学生培养成未来的研究人员和工程师，从而使这些体验产生长期影响。该项目更广泛的影响包括对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从参与研究中获得经验和收益。这个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？这个项目有四个具体目标。首先是了解工科本科生如何概念化和构建成为一名研究人员的意义。第二是发现学生认为哪些因素会影响他们的研究者身份发展。第三个是找出这些学生如何描述在他们的领域中了解一些东西的含义。第四是了解学生如何在研究经历中形成他们对知识和知识本质的信念。一个扎根的理论方法被用来扩展现有的身份和认知信念框架，在工程研究经验的背景下发展一个理论。该研究分为三个阶段，采用开放式调查和访谈来确定符合研究目标的主题，并可用于开展研讨会。这个项目的智力价值在于基于学生对认知方式和他们作为研究人员的身份的信念，发展了一种特定于工程的学习理论。这一理论用于告知工程教育工作者，并与他们一起寻找将研究成果应用于工程学位课程和课程的方法。为工程教育工作者举办的讲习班侧重于如何将ure的各个方面结合起来，这些方面有助于建立学生的认识方式和他们作为研究团体和工程领域参与者的身份。

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.