2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering and technical activities are crucial aspects of education curriculum and standards. Substantial efforts have been made to increase the number of women in STEM careers and majors; however, they remain underrepresented. Even at the middle school level, literature shows that girls are not actively being exposed to and participating in engineering contexts compared to their male counterparts. Researchers have suggested collaborative learning might lead to increased interest and participation in STEM. Yet, the literature points to the need for understanding how minoritized students interact with and experience collaborative group work settings. This study aims to explore how middle school girls in STEM engage with their peers during microelectronics group activities and how these interactions influence their learning experiences and collaborative skills through the research question: What are the discourse patterns present in girl-only groups during a pre-college microelectronics activity?

Researchers collected approximately eight hours of data over 5-unit lessons in a middle school engineering and technology classroom. The students participated in creating an electronic expansion pack for the Sphero BOLT using a micro:bit and sensors. This analysis focused on video recordings of two pairs of girls in this classroom. Using the Team Interaction Observation Protocol outlined in [1], we employed a qualitative discourse analysis approach to analyze videos. This conceptual framework specifies six types of discourse actions: task-oriented, response-oriented, learning-oriented, support-oriented, challenge-oriented, and disruptive, and was used to categorize students’ interactions.

Results suggest that girls who engage in collaborative group work during the microelectronics lessons are most engaged with task-oriented, learning-oriented, and disruptive discourse. Girls were able to engage in collaborative exchanges fluidly and can build on each other's ideas efficiently, creating an environment of support and mutual engagement, and understanding. Although the girls engage in off-task conversations, they demonstrate the ability to refocus and complete their tasks efficiently. By asking clarifying task questions, girls exemplify their engagement towards the task as they fill gaps in their learning and task responsibilities. Future work will compare the discourse of girl groups and boy groups working on the same microelectronics activity.