Sustaining Learning in Engineering Capstone Design using Sociomaterial Approaches

Abstract

This paper describes our scholarly experience as coordinators of an engineering capstone design course at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)'s Engineering Campus. The description centers on how we employ sociomaterial approaches in education to sustain students” learning. We underpinned our coordination approach with the “Actor-Network Theory” (ANT) as a theoretical foundation that conceptualizes learning in terms of interactions between the social and material constituents of the course. We also employed the ANT-analytical framework as an analytical lens for identifying interactions that had affected progress in learning. Our analysis and engagement were guided by two scholarly questions of “how are the socio-material constituents of the course composed and related to each other?” and “how could these compositions and relations be usefully intervened for sustaining students” learning using sociomaterial approaches in education?. “The findings suggest that sociomaterial approaches could improve our understanding of students” learning and the difficulties they face during the course. Such an understanding facilitates the deployment of interventions that help sustain learning in the face of difficulties. In addition., the deployment of the approach has also affected our engagement in a way that required us to reflect on our own coordination practices. These findings implicates the importance of undertaking continuous quality improvement for the course by recomposing the social and material entities of the course and by reconfiguringthe various sociomaterial interactions.