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.

神经分歧（例如，多动症、自闭症、双相情感障碍）学生将所需的特征（例如对细节的关注、创造力和独特的空间技能）带入了工程领域，但由于不同的障碍和挑战，他们更有可能从大学退学。通过了解所面临的优势和挑战来进行工程将极大地有利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的产生，该项目是美国国家科学基金会在犹他州立大学和明尼苏达州立大学扩大工程合作项目的参与。大学将通过社交媒体（例如 Instagram、TikTok）与神经分歧社区互动，了解他们的优势和挑战，从而探讨工程中的神经多样性。社交媒体是一个巨大的信息源，社区可以在其中分享他们的生活经验并建立社区，更具体地说，在 COVID-19 隔离后，神经分歧者在网上的存在扩大了，神经分歧者分享他们的生活经历并彼此互动，产生共同的意义，从而产生新的解放语言来描述他们的经历，并将自己从基于缺陷的框架中解放出来。这种语言包含了神经分歧者面临的优势和挑战，可以在工程教育中利用这些语言来支持神经分歧学生，通过与神经分歧社区互动，可以在研究人员和神经分歧人士之间建立信任，共同开发更好的学习设施和资源。此外，这种语言可以为高等教育提供信息，例如，制定政策和制定代表并可能提高神经分歧学生的参与和学位完成的学习安排。在工程学中，神经分歧学生将分享他们的故事。这些故事将公开分享，以鼓励其他神经分歧的学生学习，并向同行和教师介绍工程中的神经分歧。解放性的语言，描述了工程领域神经分歧学生的优势和挑战（神经分歧是指那些思考、运作和行为与社会“规范”显着不同的人，例如多动症、自闭症、该项目将首先实施社交媒体分析，以参与和识别公共神经分歧社区中的解放语言，将抓取社交媒体平台（例如 TikTok、Instagram、Twitter）中的神经分歧相关内容，并使用自然语言处理技术进行分析。 （潜在狄利克雷分配和情绪分析）。该方法将揭示与神经分歧的优势和挑战相关的共同语言，然后将用于制定下一阶段的优势和挑战访谈协议。第一个调查将是纵向的，将在一个学期内采访犹他州立大学的 24 名神经分歧工程学生，以制定一个学期的叙述；第二个调查将利用社交媒体在全国范围内招募神经分歧工程学生。预期成果将包括在神经分歧和研究社区之间建立信任，开发词汇词典来描述和概念化工程中的神经分歧，展示工程教育研究中的社交媒体分析和自然语言处理方法，以及该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。