Abstract
The Decoding the Disciplines (DtD) methodology has been used to study bottlenecks to student learning in a range of disciplines. The DtD interview process involves conversations between faculty regarding disciplinary practices. This article analyzes the use of the DtD approach in a student-faculty partnership to explore questions about disciplinary learning in political science. The research team compared how faculty and two cohorts of undergraduates decode a specific disciplinary bottleneck—the task of writing a literature review in political science. Results from the interviews reveal fundamental differences in how faculty and undergraduates conduct literature reviews in this discipline, including a troubling disjuncture as undergraduates become more expert in this process. Because the research team included both students and faculty, we also explore issues of disclosure and power in student-faculty partnerships in SoTL research.
Highlights
Over the past decade, the Decoding the Disciplines (DtD) methodology has been used to study “bottlenecks” to student learning in a range of disciplines
In consultation with David Pace, one of the founders of DtD, we set out to discover what would happen if students and faculty partnered to use the DtD methodology to investigate a bottleneck to student learning, something that has never been reported in the literature
Since a fundamental purpose of DtD is to understand student learning (Diaz et al, 2008), student perspectives on disciplinary bottlenecks seem to be essential to understanding student expectations of learning in a discipline
Summary
“Decoding” or deconstructing essential disciplinary concepts yields crucial information that has the potential to positively impact learning within any discipline. In consultation with David Pace, one of the founders of DtD, we set out to discover what would happen if students and faculty partnered to use the DtD methodology to investigate a bottleneck to student learning, something that has never been reported in the literature. We believe that student research partners are well positioned to explore, analyze, and interpret any potential mismatch between teacher and student perceptions of bottlenecks to learning. Student-faculty partnerships in DtD have the potential to reveal different perspectives on common bottlenecks and distinct challenges and opportunities for research in the scholarship of teaching and learning
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