Dissertation: Beyond the Classroom

The focus of my dissertation work is understanding and capturing what student experiences outside of the classroom, specifically any engineering-related non-curricular activities. To do so, I am using ethnographically-informed methods (i.e. observations, focus groups, interviews, archival data). There are a wide variety of important engineering education research studies being conducted in traditional engineering classroom, with the hope that we can find effective, engaging, and innovative pedagogies for engineering

learning. However, students spend approximately a mere 8% of their waking hours in formal learning environments (Stevens et al., 2008). So, I wondered what are students doing when they aren't in class? Yes, activities that are inappropriate for educational research conversations are a part of what students do, but it can be surprising how astoundingly engaged and productive students are outside of traditional learning environments. It is inspiring to see students actively participating in these non-traditional learning environments.

The notion that students' extracurricular activities are significantly positive to their educational experiences is nothing new. Many notable researchers (Pascarella, Terenzini, Lattuca, to name a few) have found the positive significance of these experiences, using rigorous quantitative and statistical methods as support. But why? Why are these activities so educationally beneficial to students' experiences? What are the unique affordances of these experiences and learning sites that are not present in traditional learning sites? What are the barriers that these experiences currently face? These are some of the major questions I hope to answer with my dissertation work, using qualitative methodologies borrowed from the learning sciences.

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Current Research

|  Research Statement  |                 

Current Research  |  sbes masters research  |  Undergraduate Research

Stephanie M. Kusano

Engineering Education

PhD Candidate

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Curriculum Vitae | Stephanie M. Kusano | skusano@vt.edu