"No Unfortunately About This": Positioning and Repositioning in an Engineering Projects Class

• In Event: Roundtable Session 51
  In Roundtable Session: Situating Learning and Becoming in Practice

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes
This paper uses positioning analysis (Bamberg, 1997) to examine identity processes among students in a diversity and access program at a flagship state university college of engineering. The paper aims to develop the “becoming an engineer” perspective advanced by Stevens et al (2008), showing how close attention to discursive positioning can inform these authors' three-dimensions of learning, (acceptable disciplinary knowledge; identification; and institutional navigation).

2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Using Bamberg's (1997) three levels of positioning, this analysis shows how students, through narrative, position and reposition themselves in relation to: one another, the audience, and themselves. How students position themselves and how others position students in the world of engineering is also an important analytic consideration.

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
Research questions:
1. How do students position and reposition themselves along multiple, overlapping levels of identity?
2. Why does positioning matter within the context of an engineering access program?

Through an examination of student dialogue, I pose questions similar to Bamberg's and consider how these levels of positioning engage with our understanding of engineering identity.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
The main data source is video footage from a two-week summer engineering program. Students engaged in unfamiliar activities, including woodcutting, laser cutting, and computer programming. At the end of the program, students presented their projects - a prototype of a "rescue robot" - to Access staff, students, and parents. I focused on one team’s final presentation of their prototype.

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Students in this group and the instructor participate in positioning work at multiple levels.
Through this analysis, we see evidence of positioning and repositioning, as two group members used the word "unfortunately" during their presentation. One student assigns the group agency ("Unfortunately, we were having a problem"), which helps positions the group as novices who were unable to produce a functioning prototype. This is again evident when the student explains, "We designed this leg," when referring to a leg that was not working as intended.
The instructor then intervenes and says, "... I don’t think there’s any “unfortunately” about it." She further elaborates that their project "an amazing feat to accomplish in fourteen hours of class." After this repositioning, the student who initially used the word "unfortunately" explains, " I think we did ... over three different designs for the legs." In this moment, he repositions the team as designers who considered various possibilities for how to construct their prototype, a contrast from his initial positioning of the group.

6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
This examination of a brief moment in time engages with larger questions about the world of engineering and engineering identity. Student positioning indexes larger themes that speak to "becoming an engineer" (Stevens et al, 2008) and are especially significant within the context of programs attempting to increase access to engineering.

Author

• Julie Cafarella, University of Colorado - Boulder