Collaborative Research: BPE Track 2: Disability DCL - Capturing Narratives that Characterize Neurodivergent Strengths and Weaknesses

合作研究：BPE 轨道 2：残疾 DCL - 捕捉表征神经分歧优势和劣势的叙述

• 批准号: 2306831
• 负责人: Catherine Spence
• 金额: $ 2.65万
• 依托单位: Minnesota State University, Mankato
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-07-15 至 2026-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2306831&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; BPE; Track; Disability

Neurodivergent (e.g., ADHD, autistic, bipolar) students bring desired characteristics such as attention to detail, creativity, and unique spatial skills to engineering, yet they are more likely to drop out of college due to different barriers and challenges. Empowering neurodivergent participation in engineering by understanding both the strengths and challenges faced will significantly benefit the generation of creative and innovative solutions needed to solve complex global and societal problems. This National Science Foundation’s Broadening Participation in Engineering collaborative project at Utah State University and Minnesota State University will approach neurodiversity in engineering by engaging with the neurodivergent community on social media (e.g., Instagram, TikTok) to understand their strengths and challenges. Social media is a vast information source where communities share their lived experiences and build community, and more specifically, the neurodivergent presence online expanded after the COVID-19 quarantine. Neurodivergent people share their lived experiences and interact with one another to generate shared meaning resulting in new emancipatory language that describe their experiences and emancipate themselves from deficit-based framing and stereotypes. Such language embraces both strengths and challenges faced by neurodivergent people which can be leveraged in engineering education to support neurodivergent students. By engaging with neurodivergent communities, trust can be built between researchers and neurodivergent people to work together to develop better learning accommodations and resources. Further, this language can be informative to higher education, for example, to write policy and develop learning accommodations that represent and potentially increase participation and degree completion of neurodivergent students. In engineering, neurodivergent students will share their stories in engineering to share their lived experiences such as successes and offer coping mechanisms to manage challenges. These stories will be shared publicly to encourage other neurodivergent students in their studies and inform peers and faculty about neurodivergence in engineering. This mixed-methods, collaborative project will identify emancipatory language that describe the strengths and challenges of neurodivergent students in engineering (neurodivergent refers to people who think, function, and behave significantly different from societal “norms,” e.g., ADHD, autism, schizophrenia). This project will first implement social media analytics to engage with and identify emancipatory language in the public neurodivergent community. Social media platforms (e.g., TikTok, Instagram, Twitter) will be scraped for neurodivergent related content and analyzed using natural language processing techniques (latent Dirichlet allocation and sentiment analysis). This method will reveal common language associated with neurodivergent strengths and challenges. Findings will then be used to develop a strengths and challenges interview protocol for the next phase. The next phase will consist of two narrative inquiries. The first inquiry will be longitudinal where 24 neurodivergent engineering students at Utah State University will be interviewed over a semester to develop semester long narratives. The second inquiry will leverage social media to recruit neurodivergent engineering students across the nation to develop a variety of narratives. Expected outcomes will include building trust between neurodivergent and research communities, developing a lexicon of words to describe and conceptualize neurodivergence in engineering, demonstrating social media analytics and natural language processing methods in engineering education research, and developing a resource and narrative depository for neurodivergent engineering students and engineering faculty.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

神经发病（例如，多动症，激进，双相情感障碍）带来了期望的特征，例如对细节的关注，创造力和独特的空间技能，但由于不同的障碍和挑战，他们更有可能退出大学。通过理解所面临的优势和挑战，赋予神经差异参与工程的能力将极大地有益于解决复杂的全球和社会问题所需的创造性和创新解决方案。该国家科学基金会在犹他州大学和明尼苏达州立大学的工程合作项目扩大参与，将通过与社交媒体上的神经差异社区（例如Instagram，Tiktok）互动来了解工程的神经多样性，以了解他们的优势和挑战。社交媒体是一个广泛的信息来源，社区共享他们的现场经验并建立社区，更具体地说，在Covid-19隔离区之后，在线神经发散的存在扩展了。神经化的人分享他们的现场经验，并相互互动以产生共同的意义，从而产生新的解放性语言，这些语言描述了他们的经历，并从基于赤字的框架和刻板印象中解放出来。这种语言既包含神经异常人士面临的优势和挑战，又可以在工程教育中杠杆化，以支持神经散发学的学生。通过与神经分散的社区互动，可以在研究人员和神经化的人之间建立信任，以共同努力开发更好的学习住宿和资源。此外，例如，这种语言可以为高等教育提供信息，以制定政策并制定代表并可能增加神经散发学学生的参与和学位完成的学习适应。在工程学方面，神经散发的学生将分享他们在工程学方面的故事，以分享他们的现场经验，例如成功并提供应对机制来应对挑战。这些故事将公开共享，以鼓励其他神经差的学生学习，并向同龄人和教师提供有关工程中神经差异的信息。这种混合方法，协作项目将确定解释语言，描述神经散发学学生在工程学领域的优势和挑战（神经散发学者是指那些与社会“规范”，例如ADHD，ADHD，Autism，sichizophrenia的思想，功能和行为明显不同的人）。该项目将首先实施社交媒体分析，以与公共神经散发社区中的解放语言互动和识别。社交媒体平台（例如，Tiktok，Instagram，Twitter）将被刮取用于神经散发的相关内容，并使用自然语言处理技术（潜在的DIRICHLET分配和情感分析）进行分析。该方法将揭示与神经发散优势和挑战相关的通用语言。然后，发现将用于制定下一阶段的优势和挑战访谈协议。下一阶段将包括两个叙事询问。第一次询问将是纵向，其中将在一个学期中对犹他州立大学的24名神经化工程专业的学生进行采访，以发展学期的叙事。第二次询问预期的结果将包括在神经散发和研究社区之间建立信任，开发词典来描述和概念化工程中的神经差异，证明社交媒体分析和工程教育研究中的自然语言处理方法，并通过对神经工程的研究和工程学的授权进行了支持。基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。