RAPID: Ethnographic field study of engineering knowledge systems: Developing a social-process-centric situated model

该项目由俄勒冈州立大学实施，将推动以社会过程为中心的工程知识系统定位模型的发展，由一组NASA研究人员在开发生物哨兵纳米卫星的设计过程中进行研究。这颗卫星将测量太空辐射对生物体的影响，并将成为第一个在太空远程操作的生物传感器。生物哨兵项目的复杂性和前所未有的性质提供了一个独特的机会来研究工程师团队如何在纳米卫星包的高度限制的尺寸，重量和功率容量中协商冲突和竞争需求。了解工程师实践者的知识体系，以及他们如何跨越差异进行沟通，对于开发更贴近实际工程实践的工程课程至关重要。“生物哨兵”项目将汇集基因工程、光学、微流体、控制系统、通信、太阳能和电池、推进、制导和导航系统、辐射物理、机器人、软件和用户界面以及热调节方面的专业人士。这组工程师将在严格的截止日期前集中在一个地方工作一段时间。生物哨兵的设计提供了一个独特的机会来研究工程专业知识是如何实际应用的，并记录了具有竞争知识主张的工程师相互作用，达成共识并创建复杂技术系统的社会过程。了解工程师有效地跨差异沟通的过程有助于将工程知识重新构建为一种社会、情境实践，并将有助于创建与创建复杂技术系统的工作场所需求相关的工程教育课程。俄勒冈州立大学的研究小组将把这个实地研究作为一个认识论的民族志。这将是一个沉浸式的、参与式的观察方案，旨在获取一个群体知识实践的可靠和有效证据。项目设计认识到，认知和学习科学最近的一个重大转变是从以个人为中心的认知模型转向以社会过程为中心的情境模型。有证据表明，环境，特别是经常被故意从研究、课堂和教科书中删除的社会、人类环境，在一个人的知识中起着至关重要的作用。情境模式将焦点从学生的知识和技能转移到他们在特定社会系统中的行动。为了理解STEM学生需要了解的内容和方式，必须从围绕这些知识在工作环境中的应用的社会过程中获得数据。对生物前哨设计的研究将把学习和认知的前沿理论与工程知识和社会科学研究方法结合起来，同时应用和发展对工程知识系统的理解，将其应用于异常复杂和开放式的技术系统设计。

This project conducted by Oregon State University will advance the development of a social-process-centric situated model of engineering knowledge systems by a studying a group of NASA researchers as they develop the design of the BioSentinel nano satellite. This satellite will measure the effects of radiation in space on living organisms and will be the first biosensor operated remotely in space. The complexity and unprecedented nature of the BioSentinel project provides a unique opportunity to study how a team of engineers negotiates conflicting and competing demands in the highly restricted size, weight, and power capacity of a nano satellite package. Understanding the knowledge systems of engineer practitioners and how they communicate across differences is crucial to the development of an engineering curriculum that aligns more closely to actual engineering practice. The Bio Sentinel project will bring together individuals with expertise in genetic engineering, optics, microfluidics, control systems, communications, solar and battery power, propulsion, guidance and navigation systems, radiation physics, robotics, software and user interface, and thermal regulation. This group of engineers will be convened together for concentrated period of time in a single location working against strict deadlines. The Bio Sentinel design offers a unique opportunity to study how engineering expertise is actually applied and to document the social processes by which engineers with competing knowledge claims interact, reach consensus, and create a complex technological system. Understanding the processes by which engineers effectively communicate across differences helps to reframe engineering knowledge as a social, situated practice and will help to create an engineering education curriculum that is relevant to the workplace demands of creating complex technological systems.The Oregon State team will structure this field study as an epistemological ethnography. This will be an immersive, participatory observation protocol designed to capture reliable and valid evidence of a group's knowledge practices. The project design recognizes that a significant recent shift in cognitive and learning sciences has been the move from individual-centric cognitive models of cognition to social-process-centric situative models. There is evidence that context and particularly, exactly the social, human context that is so often intentionally removed from studies, classrooms, and textbooks plays a vitally important role in what a person can be said to know. Situative models shift the focus from the students' knowledge and skills to their actions in specific social systems. To understand how and what STEM students need to know, data must be derived from social the processes surrounding the application of this knowledge in workplace environments. Study of the BioSentinel design will combine leading-edge theories of learning and cognition with engineering knowledge and social science research methods to simultaneously apply and develop an understanding of engineering knowledge systems as applied in an exceptionally complex and open-ended technological system design.