Characterizing Discourse Group Roles in Inquiry-based University Science Labs

Prior research has characterized students' group roles in introductory physics labs with a focus on what students are handling (e.g., equipment) and documented gender inequities in student division of labor. However, student discourse is rarely investigated in university science labs. We aim to bridge the gap in the literature by characterizing student discourse group roles in inquiry-based science labs. The instructional context for this study was a summer program hosted at a private research university in the eastern United States. The program was designed as a bridge program for matriculating students who were first generation and/or deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH). Accommodations such as interpreters and technology were provided for DHH students. We analyzed 15 students' discourse moves in five lab activities from the video recordings, resulting in a total of 40 student-lab units. We developed codes to describe student discourse moves: asking a question, proposing an idea, participating in discussion, chatting off-task, and talking to instructor. We conducted a cluster analysis using those 40 student-lab units on our quantified discourse moves to characterize students' discourse styles (i.e., clusters). We identified four discourse styles, high on-task high social, high on-task low social, low on-task low social, and low on-task high social. The results show that individual students tend to demonstrate varying discourse styles in different lab activities; students' discourse styles within the same groups tend to be aligned with their group members. Moreover, no difference was observed in discourse styles between genders, but DHH students were observed to participate significantly less in group discourse. We propose that group-level interventions that specifically target discourse should be used to promote productive and equitable small-group discourse in university science labs.