My research interests include informal learning experiences, professional identity and development, and design education. More specifically, I am interested in investigating how informal and extracurricular learning experiences influence student learning and professional development in engineering education contexts. I also have interests in design education, specifically how engineering design is taught, as well as how engineering design learning environments influence student learning and professional development.
Research Experiences
I have had diverse interdisciplinary research experiences that have each taught me unique ways to approach engineering education research. My research experiences began in biomedical engineering, specifically biomechanics and computational analyses research that often applied to socially-oriented public issues, such as reducing drunk driving incidences and understanding the societal impacts of suspended drivers licenses issues. I often had to creatively develop programs that could capture, manipulate, and analyze large national databases, while also communicating my findings in the contexts of biomedical engineering and traffic safety research.
These initial research experiences helped me understand and practice researching interdisciplinary, complex, and even controversial issues, which has been invaluable towards my engineering education research experiences, which also often apply to socially-oriented complex issues. My current research involves investigating informal learning experiences, specifically design-oriented extracurricular experiences for engineering students. I use ethnographically-informed methods (i.e. interviews, focus groups, naturalistic observations) to explore students' perspectives of their extracurricular experiences, as well as to investigate the characteristics of the affordances and barriers of these experiences. I currently use self-directed learning theories as a lens to understand this interpretive research, but I am intrigued by other theoretical frameworks through which I could view this area of research (e.g. identity theories, situated learning theories). My current work has inspired my research interests in informal learning experiences, student development, professional identity, and design education.
Future Research
My research aim is to expand my current research from the context of student development and professional identity. I intend to work towards bridging curricular and co-curricular experiences to enhance holistic student experiences in higher education. One of the most significant barriers I have found during my research on co-curricular learning experiences is awareness. Students have limited awareness of the valuable opportunities that are on their own campus, and faculty have limited awareness of what their students are involved in outside of the classroom. I hope to explore innovative strategies to encourage students to engage in productive co-curricular opportunities, such as developing systemized digital resources to help students identify available opportunities that match their goals and interests. Through my research, I also hope to identify the affordances and barriers of informal learning experiences with the goal of continually improving meaningful learning experiences for engineering students.
Reflecting on my worldview, I consider myself as a pragmatist. That is to say, I am often more concerned about the issues of I research, rather than the methods with which I conduct research. I have intriguing research questions exploring the field of engineering education, and whether I use qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods will depend on the research purpose and on the type of research questions being asked. I am not only comfortable conducting and understanding a variety of research methodologies, but I am also highly intrigued and inspired by the variety of research questions pertaining to informal learning experiences, student development, professional identity, and design education. Some questions I have in mind circulate around the characteristics/demographics of students participating in informal learning experiences, influences on career pathways, implications to design education practices, and influences on students' engineering and professional identities, just to name a few.
Research-to-Practice
I am a strong proponent of the research-to-practice cycle. With my current research I strive to find ways to contribute my work and findings that are relevant to traditional engineering disciplines. For example, with my dissertation work I have worked closely with traditional engineering faculty that lead the co-curricular opportunities involved in my study when developing surveys and protocols to ensure that I am investigating relevant issues. I also collaborate with the involved engineering faculty when disseminating my results, either through white-paper reports or research publications. In doing so, I believe my research remains informed by the involved engineering education practices, and my research helps inform continual improvement in engineering education practices.
Research Statement
All Rights for the images reserved to marfis75 photostream from flickr, if you keep them,please keep the credit.
View my LinkedIn profileCurriculum Vitae | Stephanie M. Kusano | skusano@vt.edu