Understanding Multiple Layers of Practice: A Study on Academic Discourse Socialization in Engineering Research Teams

Abstract

Academic discourse socialization (ADS) is the process during which novices and newcomers learn the academic practices and values involved in their disciplines (Kobayashi, Zappa-Hollman, & Duff, 2017). Scholars have investigated domestic and international students' socialization into academic discourse by examining small group team discussions (e.g., Ho 2011; Vickers 2007), academic presentations, (e.g., Kobayashi, 2016; Morton, 2009; Tracy, 1997; Yang, 2010), one-to-one conferences (e.g., Gilliland, 2014), and students’ out-of-class collaborations and interactions (e.g., Fei, 2016; Morita, 2009; Seloni, 2012; Shi, 2011). Although research teams have been one of the major sites of disciplinary practice and socialization, relatively few studies have examined the ADS processes of novices in engineering research teams in STEM fields (e.g., Lei & Hu, 2015; Li, 2007). The findings of previous studies have exemplified the highly multimodal nature of academic communication in STEM fields; however, they have not presented detailed accounts of how novices are socialized into academic discourse through team practices and interactions. This situated qualitative study addresses this research ga by focusing on the academic discourse socialization processes of three international graduate students in an engineering research team. More specifically, it examines how the students were socialized into two research genres—conference presentations and research articles—through weekly research team meetings and collaborative writing practices. Data were collected over the course of 15 months and included video recordings of research team meetings, semi-structured interviews, extensive field notes, and student artifacts. Data analysis was conducted with thematic coding. The focal research team was an interdisciplinary research lab that focused on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The findings indicate that while socializing novice researchers into conference presentations, the research team helped them employ multiple modes and construct and present new knowledge through not only images but also language. The analysis of the collaborative writing process demonstrated that marginal comments served as a space for socializing a novice author into scholarly publishing. More specifically, multiple team members with varied experience used marginal comments to communicate the conventions of discipline-specific writing practices to less experienced team members. The study offers implications regarding the role of oral-literate connections and expert-peer interactions in socializing novices into research genres. Moreover, the study provides implications for future research on the investigation of ADS processes involved in multimodal STEM communication.