Collaborative Research: A Study of Socio-metacognition, Emotions, and Power Dynamics When Undergraduate Physics Students Engage in Collaborative Activities that Elicit Confusion

该项目旨在通过促进对学生在协作学习中如何管理困惑的理解，为国家利益服务。在全国范围内，许多以学生为中心的研究型本科物理课程都采用了引出、面对、解决（ECR）的教学框架。在这个框架中，学生们会看到一些已知会引起混乱的场景，并希望他们一起努力解决这些问题。一些学生团体成功地管理了混乱，并维持了富有成效的学习。然而，其他群体往往会因伴随持续困惑的情绪而偏离轨道。为了了解如何在协作学习中更好地支持学生，本研究将调查学生如何在参与基于ecr的活动时一起解决出现的困惑。该项目将以两所主要本科院校的K-8职前教师的物理课程为中心，一所主要是白人院校，另一所是西班牙裔服务院校。职前K-8教师大多是女性，她们一直被忽视，在物理教育研究中的代表性不足。事实上，物理学的主导文化植根于白人和男子气概。本项目将探讨在大多数学生群体不认为自己是主导群体的情况下，一门学科（在本例中是物理学）的主导文化是如何被感知和谈判的。通过将社会元认知（规划、监控和调节以优化协作）、情感和权力动力学联系起来，该项目旨在确定学生被排除或被纳入物理学习社区的途径。通过该项目开发的知识有可能提高STEM学科协作、以学生为中心的教学实践的有效性和公平性。对未来教育者的关注将增加潜在的影响，因为这些学生将成为教师并塑造年轻学生的早期科学经验。该项目将采用Borge及其同事开发的社会元认知理论框架。该项目将通过整合权力动力学和情感，以及在博尔格框架中起辅助作用的非认知因素来完善这个框架。该项目的具体研究目标是：1)确定学生在一起完成明显令人困惑的物理学习任务时出现的社会元认知模式；2)研究学生如何在这样的学习环境中制定和协商权力动态；3)评估在持续困惑的情况下情绪对学生参与的影响程度。本项目采用混合方法，根据课堂观察、学生报告的主观经验、书面反思和访谈，生成丰富的案例研究。案例研究将社会元认知、情感和权力动力学联系起来，以阐明学生被排除或被纳入物理学习社区的各种途径。该项目旨在促进对社会情感过程的理解，这些过程伴随着有目的地引发特定学习困难的合作活动。项目研究结果有可能为教学设计提供信息，以支持在持续困惑的情况下保持对小组学习活动的参与。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。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划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 advancing understanding about how students manage confusion during collaborative learning. Nationwide, many research-based student-centered undergraduate physics courses use an instructional framework of elicit, confront, resolve (ECR). In this framework, students are presented with scenarios known to elicit confusion and are expected to work together to resolve it. Some student groups successfully manage confusion and sustain productive learning. However, other groups often become derailed by the emotions that can accompany persistent confusion. To understand how to better support students during collaborative learning, this study will investigate how students work together to resolve confusion that arises while engaging in ECR-based activities. This project will center on a physics course for K-8 preservice teachers at two primarily undergraduate institutions, a Predominantly White Institution and a Hispanic Serving Institution. Preservice K-8 teachers are mostly female and have been overlooked and are underrepresented in physics education research. Indeed, the dominant culture of physics is rooted in whiteness and masculinity. This project will explore how the dominant culture of a discipline, physics in this case, is perceived and negotiated when the majority of the student population does not identify as the dominant group. By linking socio-metacognition (planning, monitoring, and regulating to optimize collaboration), emotions, and power dynamics, the project intends to identify pathways by which students are either excluded or included in physics learning communities. Knowledge developed through this project has the potential to improve the efficacy and equity of collaborative, student-centered teaching practices across STEM disciplines. The focus on future educators will increase the potential impact, as these students will become teachers and shape the early science experiences of young students.The project will adopt a theoretical framework in socio-metacognition developed by Borge and colleagues. This framework will be refined by this project through incorporation of power dynamics and emotions, noncognitive factors that play subsidiary roles in the Borge framework. The specific research objectives of this project are to: 1) identify the socio-metacognitive patterns that emerge when students work together on explicitly confusing physics learning tasks; 2) investigate how students enact and negotiate power dynamics in such learning environments; and 3) assess the extent to which emotions impact student engagement in the presence of persistent confusion. This project uses a mixed-methods approach to generate rich case studies based on classroom observations, students’ reported subjective experiences, written reflections, and interviews. The case studies will link socio-metacognition, emotions, and power dynamics to illuminate various pathways through which students are either excluded or included in physics learning communities. The project seeks to advance understanding of the social-emotional processes that accompany collaborative activities that purposely elicit specific learning difficulties. Project findings have the potential to inform the design of instruction that supports maintained engagement in group-learning activities in the presence of persistent confusion. 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.