Project Investigator(s): Agnes d’Entremont, Associate Professor of Teaching & Loay Al-Salehi, PhD Candidate, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Science
Project Description
Although core engineering science courses typically do not focus on team and group work, many students complete their homework, and/or study for exams, in groups (“Informal peer collaboration”). Limited research has concluded that low levels of informal peer collaboration on homework are associated with poorer academic outcomes and surveys have also shown that informal peer collaboration is widely spread, but no work has been done to examine the instructor’s perceptions and practices around informal peer collaboration. Therefore, our research objective is to explore such attitudes and actions by interviewing engineering science instructors in Mechanical Engineering.
Research Questions
Our research objective is to explore attitudes and actions among engineering science instructors in Mechanical Engineering around informal peer collaboration. Our research questions are:
1. What do engineering science instructors believe about the value of informal peer collaboration in their courses?
2. What do engineering science instructors believe about the reasons why students participate in informal peer collaboration in their courses?
3. What do engineering science instructors perceive about the presence or absence of informal peer collaboration in their courses?
4. What actions (if any) do engineering science instructors take around informal peer collaboration in their courses?
Impact on teaching and learning at UBC
As demonstrated in the literature, prior research suggests that engineering students value informal peer collaboration, and that low informal peer collaboration is typically associated with lower grades. If we can identify the range of instructor attitudes and actions around informal peer collaboration, we may be able to discern some potential structural barriers to peer collaboration. We could then design and test interventions with course instructors that could encourage informal collaboration strategies in core engineering science courses. Interventions could range from changes to expressed expectations in the syllabus up to providing concrete resources through the course to facilitate or encourage collaboration.