An Ethnographic Study of Student Use of Online Resources to Improve Student Learning Outcomes

这个项目解决了本科STEM教育中一个重要而及时的话题，即学生应该如何适当地使用在线资源来支持学生学习。帮助学生培养良好的解决问题的技能是工程教育的重要组成部分，因为它为他们在工程劳动力的职业生涯做好了准备。技术进步为工程专业的本科生提供了新的方式来合作和访问在线资源。这些变化也产生了意想不到的后果，例如使用直接访问和人与人之间共享的在线家庭作业解决方案。不恰当地使用解决方案会给学生的学习造成障碍。这一问题的重要性随着新技术的出现而有增无减，这表明需要从新的方向处理这一问题。这个项目将使用新的方法来研究学生在研究或解决工程问题时如何以及为什么使用解决方案。这些研究结果将为制定有助于支持工程专业学生学习的教学干预和政策提供信息。研究和干预活动的范围包括两个高入学率的入门工程课程的研究，力学和热力学，这些课程在工程的各个领域都有大量的学生。该项目将使用创新的定性研究方法，以促进该领域对学生如何以及为什么使用家庭作业解决方案的理解，并研究旨在减少不适当使用解决方案的教学干预和政策变化的有效性。预计这些干预措施和政策将改善学生的学习成果。项目团队将通过学生访谈以及音频和视频期刊收集数据，以丰富描述学生完成课程作业的经历。人种学方法将用于研究学生如何浏览课程的文化和他们遇到的更广泛的工程项目，这将有助于阐明学生使用解决方案的理由以及学生如何使用它们来学习的模式。这些模式将告知与教师共同制定的教学干预措施以及该机构的潜在政策变化。研究结果，教学干预措施和新政策将通过研讨会和出版物传播到其他机构的工程学院，以便其他机构能够采取类似的干预措施和政策。NSF 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。该奖项反映了NSF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 addresses an important and timely topic in undergraduate STEM education, namely, how students should use online resources appropriately to support student learning. Helping students to develop good problem solving skills is an important part of engineering education because it prepares them for careers in the engineering workforce. Technological advances have provided undergraduate engineering students with new ways to collaborate and access online resources. These changes have also created unintended consequences such as the use of online homework solutions that are accessed directly and shared person-to-person. Using solutions inappropriately can create barriers to student learning. The significance of this issue, which has continued unabated with the emergence of new technologies, points to the need to approach this issue from a new direction. This project will use new methods to study how and why students use solutions when studying or solving engineering problems. These research findings will inform the development of instructional interventions and policies that help support engineering students’ learning.The scope of the research and intervention activities includes the study of two high-enrollment introductory engineering courses, mechanics and thermodynamics, that reach a large number of students in every subfield of engineering. The project will use innovative qualitative research methods to advance the field’s understanding of how and why students use homework solutions and to study the efficacy of instructional interventions and policy changes aimed at reducing inappropriate use of solutions. It is expected that these interventions and policies will improve student learning outcomes. The project team will collect data through student interviews as well as audio and video journals to develop rich descriptions of students' experiences getting through coursework. Ethnographic methods will be used to study how students navigate the cultures of the courses and the broader engineering programs they encounter, which will help elucidate patterns in students’ justifications for using solutions and how students use them to learn. These patterns will inform instructional interventions co-developed with instructors and potential policy changes at the institution. The research findings, instructional interventions, and new policies will be disseminated to engineering faculty at other institutions through a workshop and publications so that other institutions will be able to adopt similar interventions and policies. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, 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.