Advancing Adaptation of Writing Pedagogies for Undergraduate STEM Education Through Transdisciplinary Action Research

这个项目旨在通过研究如何帮助工科学生培养有效的沟通技巧来服务于国家利益。美国国家科学院和美国国家工程院都强调了这种关键能力。然而，沟通技巧对学生来说仍然具有挑战性。这项工作的长期目标是以一种持久、经济、可扩展的方式提高攻读科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）学位的本科生的写作技能。这个跨学科项目将建立在STEM和写作研究教师之间现有的密切合作基础上。写作教学的最佳实践是由先前的写作研究确立的。然而，在大多数STEM课程中，这些做法在很大程度上仍未被采用。STEM学生必须掌握不同的体裁和惯例，这取决于他们的学科。例子包括技术报告和谈话、标准、实验室报告和档案文献的科学论文。此外，STEM课程往往很大，很少有STEM教师接受过教学和有效回应学生写作的培训。该项目将调查一个名为“跨工程与科学写作”（WAES）的项目在促进教师采用最佳实践和吸引学生在整个本科课程中进行专业写作方面的有效性。该研究项目将i)为WAES项目的持续发展提供信息，ii)建立一个教师社区，致力于适应和创新写作研究的最佳实践，以适应不同类型和规模的STEM课程的限制和目标，iii)开始评估这些适应和创新的有效性，以及iv)推进对如何促进教学变革的理解，无论是在写作研究中还是在整体教师发展中。WAES是一个跨学科项目，使STEM教师能够在其学科背景下更有效地教授写作。该项目将采用跨学科行动研究方法，整合跨学科合作、正在进行的研究和教育改革。WAES项目在促进教学改革和吸引学生参与写作方面的有效性将通过严格的混合方法、三角评估计划进行评估。目标1将评估WAES项目在提高STEM教师对写作研究最佳实践的认识并鼓励他们创造性地适应这些最佳实践方面的有效性。定性的、混合方法的方法将包括教师调查、课程材料、教师访谈、WAES会议、指导会议、课堂和课程人员会议的观察。将对这些数据进行分析，以便从写作研究和新兴主题中吸收/拒绝概念。目标2将评估WAES项目对学生参与写作的影响。学生的参与度将首先通过对wes影响班和对照班的调查来评估，使用情感和行为问题。我们将与学生进行启发式访谈，以加深对影响的了解。学生的写作样本将被收集，并多维分析的语言和修辞特征的写作将被启动。本项目由美国国家科学基金改进本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源资助。IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。该项目处于“参与学生学习”轨道，通过该轨道，该项目支持有前途的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by investigating how to help engineering and science students develop effective communication skills. Both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering have emphasized this critical competency. Nevertheless, communication skills remain challenging for students to develop. The long-term objective of this work is to improve the writing skills of undergraduate students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees in a lasting, cost-effective, and scalable way. This transdisciplinary project will build on an intensive existing collaboration between STEM and writing-studies faculty. Best practices for teaching writing have been established by previous research in writing studies. However, these practices remain largely unadopted in most STEM classes. STEM students must master different genres and conventions, depending on their discipline. Examples include technical reports and talks, standards, laboratory reports, and scientific papers for the archival literature. In addition, STEM classes tend to be large and few STEM faculty are trained to teach and respond effectively to student writing. This project will investigate the effectiveness of a program called Writing Across Engineering & Science (WAES) in promoting faculty adoption of best practices and engaging students with professional writing throughout the undergraduate curriculum. This research project will i) inform continued developments to the WAES program, ii) build a faculty community working to adapt and innovate best practices from writing studies to suit the constraints and objectives of different types and sizes of STEM classes, iii) initiate evaluation of the effectiveness of those adaptations and innovations, and iv) advance understanding of how to promote pedagogical change, both within writing studies and for overall faculty development. WAES is a transdisciplinary program that empowers STEM faculty to teach writing more effectively within their disciplinary contexts. The project will apply a transdisciplinary action research approach that integrates cross-disciplinary collaboration, ongoing research, and educational reforms. The effectiveness of the WAES program at promoting pedagogical change and engaging students with writing will be evaluated through a rigorous mixed-methods, triangulated assessment plan. Objective 1 will evaluate the effectiveness of the WAES program in increasing STEM faculty awareness of best practices from writing studies and encouraging their creative adaptation of those best practices. The qualitative, mixed-methods approach will include faculty surveys, course materials, faculty interviews, and observations of WAES sessions, mentoring meetings, classes and course staff meetings. These data will be analyzed for uptake/rejection of concepts from writing studies and for emergent themes. Objective 2 will assess the impact of the WAES program on students’ engagement with writing. Student engagement will be assessed first through surveys in paired WAES-impacted and control classes, using both affective and behavioral questions. Stimulated elicitation interviews will be conducted with students for a deeper understanding of impacts. Student writing samples will be collected, and multidimensional analysis of linguistic and rhetorical features of the writing will be initiated. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources. The IUSE: EHR program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This project is in the Engaged Student Learning track, through which the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.