Investigating Team Knowledge Building in Complex Science and Statistics Problem Solving when the Teams Include Deaf/Hard of Hearing and Hearing College Students

Rochester Institute Of Tech, Rochester NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award is supported by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, specifically the ECR Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) area of special interest. ECR emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This research in disabilities education project will contribute to foundational knowledge about how deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduate students, and their hearing peers, work together within science teams to solve problems. This research will contribute to the need to determine how to better educate students studying science in our country and about how they use their knowledge about statistics to solve problems. There are approximately 80,000 school-age children with hearing impairments in our nation's schools. There is a pressing need to ensure that when these students pursue college education, and advance in STEM careers, they have equal access to team work in science and mathematics education. Gaining a better understanding of how undergraduate students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing learn in team settings, and when they apply statistical knowledge to the science learning activities, has the potential to lead to further basic and applied research which may ultimately improve how these students learn science and how college faculty can improve their instructional practices to help students better learn science content, apply statistical knowledge to learning, and work together in STEM teams. Project leaders at Rochester Institute of Technology's National Institute for the Deaf will investigate the effects of collaboration situation parameters (information, knowledge uncertainty, team member characteristics and technology) and schema enriched communication (training about communication and use of information boards for knowledge products) on the knowledge building processes (knowledge transfer, objects and interoperability, and cognitive congruence) evident in small groups of undergraduate students who apply statistics concepts to science problem solving. At the completion of the exploratory study, it is anticipated that results will inform future basic and applied educational research about how undergraduate teams, with deaf and hard-of-hearing members, solve science problems when they apply statistical knowledge. The results of this work are expected to be shared with education researchers and the public in professional publications.