Abstract
We analyzed student engagement in physics during a summer course for incoming first-year students, part of a cohort-based learning community designed for students from underrepresented groups in the School of Engineering of a predominantly white institution. The data—video of an episode within the course and interviews of the 11 students one year later about their experiences in the program and the course—support two findings: (i) The students cared for each other, in a social sense, and felt cared for by the instructor, and (ii) the students framed the course as focused on their own reasoning. We argue that the former supported the latter, and we offer this as a conjecture for further study: Social caring can support productive epistemological framing. If this is correct, it would suggest the benefits of aligning what takes place within courses with the socially supportive dynamics of extracurricular cohort-based learning communities.Received 4 January 2021Accepted 9 August 2021Corrected 8 October 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.023106Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDiversity & inclusionEpistemology, attitudes, & beliefsPhysics Education Research
Highlights
In an interview at the end of his first year of university, a student described his experiences within a cohort-based program, Bridge to Engineering Success at Tufts (BEST):[T]he cohort that I was in—like, so many of them I can call my best friends, even
Using an episode of disciplinary engagement within a reformed physics course at the outset of students’ time in university and in their cohort-based learning communities (CBLCs), we argue that students’ experience of social caring within the context of the course and the program helped generate and stabilize their meaningful engagement in scientific inquiry in particular by supporting students in valuing their own and each other’s thinking
We have reviewed evidence that the students spoke about these two themes—social caring and shifted epistemology
Summary
In an interview at the end of his first year of university, a student described his experiences within a cohort-based program, Bridge to Engineering Success at Tufts (BEST):. They showed a sense of community, an explicit goal for BEST, and what we will refer to as social caring They described having shifted in their epistemological framing, that is in their expectations about what it means to know and learn, during their first course in physics, the summer before their formal matriculation. Using an episode of disciplinary engagement within a reformed physics course at the outset of students’ time in university and in their CBLC, we argue that students’ experience of social caring within the context of the course and the program helped generate and stabilize their meaningful engagement in scientific inquiry in particular by supporting students in valuing their own and each other’s thinking. We propose that social caring in the context of doing science involves attention to and respect for the substance of students’ thinking We support this claim with evidence from student interviews and from the classroom episode.
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