Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Relational Reasoning and Socially Shared Regulation of Learning in Collaborative Problem Solving(2020) Jablansky, Sophie; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The ability to solve complex problems in collaborative settings is considered a critical 21st century competency. Yet, national and international reports have revealed deficiencies in both students’ and employees’ teamwork and communication skills, which are essential when working collaboratively. These deficits may be underlain by a limited understanding of how cognitive and social processes operate synchronistically as team members work together to solve complex problems. The current study aimed to investigate how two specific processes—relational reasoning (RR) and socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL)—unfold during a collaborative problem-solving (CPS) task. Specifically, the researcher assessed the extent to which different teams exhibited differential proportions of reasoning and regulation; how team activity was distributed across individuals; and, whether frequent sequences of reasoning and regulation could be identified. To address these aims, four teams of senior undergraduate students (n = 22) were recruited from a capstone design course in mechanical engineering. Over the course of the semester, teams conceptualized and prototyped a design to address a current market need. Each team was video-recorded during the conceptualization process—specifically, as teams evaluated and eliminated ideas from their corpus of designs. Team conversations were transcribed, segmented into utterances, and coded for the presence of RR, SSRL, and task-related and other talk. Results from chi-square tests of independence, social network analysis, and sequence mining revealed that teams indeed exhibited differential proportions of RR and SSRL, with antinomous reasoning and monitoring and control of consensus emerging as key CPS processes. Further, planning and reflection acted as bookends to CPS, while RR and monitoring processes co-occurred in the interim. Finally, CPS alternated between periods of activity that were shared more and less equally among team members. This study contributes to the literature on CPS by exploring the dynamic interplay between RR and SSRL and by demonstrating that CPS can be investigated at the micro level, meso level, and macro level. Methodologically, this study demonstrates how leveraging data mining techniques and assembling compelling visualizations can illustrate the recursive and cyclical character of RR and SSRL. Finally, limitations are noted, and implications for research and practice are forwarded.Item “HOW DO WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN?” TEACHER CHALLENGES AND PRODUCTIVE RESOURCES FOR INTEGRATING ENGINEERING DESIGN INTO HIGH-SCHOOL PHYSICS(2017) Shirey, Katherine Levenick; Elby, Andrew; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Recent attention on social, civil, and environmental problems has caused policy-makers and advisors to advocate for more integrated science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) instruction. Although integrated STEM education promises to prepare U.S. students to tackle the crises of our times and the future (Lander & Gates, 2010), the integration of engineering design into high-school physics may prove difficult for teachers whether or not they’ve been previously trained in engineering design. This dissertation addresses a gap in classroom observation-based research on engineering integration in physics (Dare, Ellis, & Roehrig, 2014) by drawing on rich, qualitative, participant-observation data to investigate engineering-design instruction in high-school physics. The first study explores tensions that three high-school physics teachers encountered as they planned and executed a terminal velocity engineering design challenge. Separating out physics content came into tension with truly integrated engineering-design instruction as envisioned in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013d), time and technical constraints came into tension with adequate data collection for making design decisions, and teachers’ supportive classroom routines came into tension with students’ divergent design thinking and agency. The first study concludes that even highly motivated and supported teachers may experience tensions between their regularly productive instructional practices and engineering design that could threaten the authenticity of the engineering design in which students engage. The second study identifies some of teacher “Leslie’s” productive resources (locally coherent patterns of thoughts and actions) activated as she implemented her first engineering design challenge in physics. Leslie called up some of the same resources when she taught engineering design as when she facilitated open, guided, and structured-inquiry investigations. This study suggests that finding and calling upon resources that are assistive in other instruction, such as inquiry instruction, might be useful for science teachers attempting engineering-design integration. Science education reform implementation researchers, teacher educators, and professional development providers need to acknowledge tensions that teachers may face with engineering-design integration, and the role that teachers’ existing resources can play in supporting reform adoption. Finally, this study agrees with other work (Katehi, Perason, Feder, & Committee on K-12 Engineering Education, 2009) emphasizing the need for more research on engineering-design integration in high-school physics.