TY - JOUR
T1 - Discourse analysis of middle school students' explanations during a final design review (fundamental)
AU - Quintana-Cifuentes, Jenny P.
AU - Purzer, Senay
AU - Goldstein, Molly H.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DUE #1348547. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper, however, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect e views of the NSF.
Publisher Copyright:
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2019
PY - 2019/6/15
Y1 - 2019/6/15
N2 - Recent reform efforts in K-12 education, in the United States and globally, have necessitated further research on design learning among K-12 students. One of the key competencies necessary for design and solving problems is the ability to fluently transition between concrete aspects of a problem (such as artifacts and problem context) and abstract concepts such as scientific and mathematical principles. While such fluency is difficult even for adult learners, contemporary studies show that young children can transition between abstract and concrete ideas and can effectively make trade-off decisions. The purpose of this study is to understand how students make these connections as they defend their trade-off decisions and final design solutions during a design review session. Using discourse analysis methods, we analyzed interviews between nine middle school students and two external judges that occurred during a final design review session. We used the Legitimation Code Theory to study semantic gravity (their trade-offs decisions are highly depending on the context or students empirical reasoning) and semantic density (transitions between specific design criterion and multiple trade-offs) in student explanations. This study confirms the importance of eliciting student ideas with targeted questions and helping students make fluent transitions between concrete aspects of a solution and abstract concepts while balancing design trade-offs. We argue that such dialogue is necessary for students to develop a deep understanding of disciplinary core concepts and successful design solutions.
AB - Recent reform efforts in K-12 education, in the United States and globally, have necessitated further research on design learning among K-12 students. One of the key competencies necessary for design and solving problems is the ability to fluently transition between concrete aspects of a problem (such as artifacts and problem context) and abstract concepts such as scientific and mathematical principles. While such fluency is difficult even for adult learners, contemporary studies show that young children can transition between abstract and concrete ideas and can effectively make trade-off decisions. The purpose of this study is to understand how students make these connections as they defend their trade-off decisions and final design solutions during a design review session. Using discourse analysis methods, we analyzed interviews between nine middle school students and two external judges that occurred during a final design review session. We used the Legitimation Code Theory to study semantic gravity (their trade-offs decisions are highly depending on the context or students empirical reasoning) and semantic density (transitions between specific design criterion and multiple trade-offs) in student explanations. This study confirms the importance of eliciting student ideas with targeted questions and helping students make fluent transitions between concrete aspects of a solution and abstract concepts while balancing design trade-offs. We argue that such dialogue is necessary for students to develop a deep understanding of disciplinary core concepts and successful design solutions.
KW - Decision-making
KW - Engineering design
KW - Middle school
KW - Semantic waves
KW - Trade-offs
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M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85078744048
JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
SN - 2153-5965
T2 - 126th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Charged Up for the Next 125 Years, ASEE 2019
Y2 - 15 June 2019 through 19 June 2019
ER -