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Exploring the Reasons for Collaboration and Cooperation Among Graduate Student Researchers

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Conference

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

San Antonio, Texas

Publication Date

June 10, 2012

Start Date

June 10, 2012

End Date

June 13, 2012

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Research and Graduate Studies

Tagged Division

Graduate Studies

Page Count

17

Page Numbers

25.621.1 - 25.621.17

DOI

10.18260/1-2--21378

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/21378

Download Count

974

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Paper Authors

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Alexandra Coso Strong Georgia Institute of Technology Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-4988-361X

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Alexandra Coso is a Ph.D. student in the Cognitive Engineering Center at Georgia Tech, where she is pursuing a doctorate in aerospace engineering. She received her B.S. in aerospace engineering from MIT and her M.S. in systems engineering from the University of Virginia. Alexandra is actively involved in the ASEE Student Division and the Graduate Engineering Education Consortium for Students, and she recently co-founded a Georgia Tech ASEE Student Chapter. Her research interests include the integration of cognitive engineering into the aerospace engineering design process, development and evaluation of interdisciplinary engineering courses and programs, mixed methods research designs, and graduate student experiences in engineering programs.

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Rachel A. Louis Virginia Tech Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-9745-1921

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Rachel Louis is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from the Ohio State University where she specialized in construction. Her master's work focused on the concept of sustainable bridge designs using fuzzy logic models. While at Ohio State, she taught for the First-year Engineering program which lead her to engineering education. Currently at VT, Louis is a Dean’s Teaching Fellow teaching for ENGE 1024, is an ENGE Ambassador, is actively involved in the Graduate Engineering Education Consortium of Students (GEECS), and is serving as the secretary for the VT ASEE Student Chapter for the 2011-2012 school year. Her current research interests focus on graduate teaching assistant (GTA) motivation to teach and GTA teacher identity development in first-year engineering courses.

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Jeremi S. London Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Jeremi London is a graduate student at Purdue University. She is pursuing a M.S. in industrial engineering and a Ph.D. in engineering education.

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Ida B. Ngambeki Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Ida Ngambeki is a doctoral candidate at the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research interests include vocational choice in engineering, human-artifact interaction, and engineering and public policy.

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Brook Sattler University of Washington

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Brook Sattler is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. Her dissertation focuses on mechanisms for supporting engineering student development, specifically self-authorship.

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Abstract

Exploring the Reasons for Collaboration and Cooperation among Graduate Student ResearchersResearch collaborations among faculty, students, and industry provide opportunities for theadvancement of engineering education research and the development of educational innovations.It is important for graduate students to participate in collaborative research as they develop intofull members of the profession because this participation helps them gain an understanding of thechallenges of collaboration as well as various ways of overcoming challenges. Beyond workingwith faculty and members of industry, graduate students may choose to conduct research withfellow students. Research collaborations among graduate students provide a means to diversifyinterests, develop research skills, and build relationships. Despite their obvious value, thesecooperative experiences are uncommon among graduate students in the engineering educationcommunity. Consider the following example: approximately 800 students are members of theAmerican Society for Engineering Education (ASEE); yet only a small number of papers orposters at the Annual Conference and Exposition are collaborations among graduate students.Currently, little is known about the factors that influence graduate students’ willingness to seekout these collaborations, and how these relationships are developed.The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that affect graduate students’ willingness toparticipate in collaborative engineering education research with other graduate students. Thisresearch was conducted in two phases, a literature review and a pilot study. The first phaseinvolved a literature review to provide insight about the barriers and bridges to multidisciplinaryand dispersed collaborations. The review also provided a theoretical framework for evaluatingthe motivations behind forming research collaborations. Finally, the review was used to identifyprior examples of graduate student collaborations in engineering education and explore thenature of these collaborations. The second phase of the study sought to gain an initialunderstanding of graduate students’ perceptions of collaborative research. A pilot study wasconducted at a graduate student research workshop that was intended to help the attendeesdevelop research questions for collaborative research. The data collected includes both pre andpost survey responses from a small sample of students interested in engineering educationresearch. We intend to examine this initial data set to characterize trends among students’perceptions and to guide future research in this area.The future of engineering education research will depend on collaborations among educators,researchers, and students. The involvement of graduate students in organizing and leadingresearch projects with their peers is important in preparing them to enter a field based onmultidisciplinary collaboration. Through this study, we aim to develop an understanding of thefactors that support graduate student collaborations and develop recommendations to facilitatecollaborative work.

Strong, A. C., & Louis, R. A., & London, J. S., & Ngambeki, I. B., & Sattler, B. (2012, June), Exploring the Reasons for Collaboration and Cooperation Among Graduate Student Researchers Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21378

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