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

这个项目旨在通过调查如何帮助工科和理科学生发展有效的沟通技能来服务于国家利益。美国国家科学院和国家工程院都强调了这一关键能力。然而，对学生来说，沟通技能的培养仍然具有挑战性。这项工作的长期目标是以持久、经济有效和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。这个跨学科的项目将建立在STEM和写作研究学院之间现有的密集合作基础上。写作教学的最佳实践已经被以前的写作研究所确立。然而，这些做法在大多数STEM班级中基本上仍未采用。STEM学生必须掌握不同的体裁和惯例，这取决于他们的学科。例如技术报告和讲座、标准、实验室报告和档案文献的科学论文。此外，STEM的班级往往很大，很少有STEM教员接受过有效教授和回应学生写作的培训。该项目将调查一项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以及让学生在整个本科课程中从事专业写作方面的有效性。这项研究项目将：i)为WAES计划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班级的限制和目标；iii)启动对这些适应和创新的有效性的评估；以及iv)增进对如何在写作研究和整体教师发展中促进教学变革的理解。WAES是一个跨学科的项目，使STEM教师能够在他们的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、持续研究和教育改革。WAES计划在促进教学变革和让学生参与写作方面的有效性将通过一个严格的混合方法、三角评估计划进行评估。目标1将评估WAES计划在提高STEM教员对撰写研究的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、混合的方法将包括教师调查、课程材料、教师访谈和对WAES会议、指导会议、课程和课程员工会议的观察。这些数据将被分析，以从写作研究中吸收或拒绝概念，以及新出现的主题。目标2将评估WAES项目对学生写作参与度的影响。学生的参与度将首先通过在受影响和对照的班级中进行调查，使用情感和行为问题进行评估。将与学生进行模拟启发式访谈，以更深入地了解影响。将收集学生的写作样本，并开始对写作的语言和修辞特征进行多维分析。该项目得到了美国国家科学基金会改善本科生STEM教育计划：教育和人力资源的支持。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中，通过该计划支持有前景的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.