Development of Concepts in Microengineering Teaching and Practice

2022-11-30, Vergara Wilson, Martín

Concepts are a matter of importance for engineering education. Believed to be critical for developing expertise and engineering competence, conceptual knowledge has become a focus for research and training. Despite focusing on it, engineering graduates still often do not understand core concepts for their practice. With a few exceptions, most research concerning conceptual knowledge in engineering has been developed on assumptions of cognitive psychology, which have been subject to strong criticisms. One of these criticisms points out that mainstream approaches on concepts do not account for the socio-material conditions in which concepts are used and transformed. Some researchers in engineering education have moved beyond, taking a situative perspective. These studies have shown how, compared to training, knowledge in the practice is highly contextualized, depends on tools in which it is inscribed, and is distributed among collaborators. However, while stressing the sociomaterial dimension of conceptual knowledge and the differences in concept use between training and practice, the situative perspective does not account for the way in which conceptual knowledge develops. Alternatively, the cultural-historical theory of concepts offers an approach that overcomes the weaknesses of mainstream approaches while addressing the problem of development. Drawing on culturalhistorical theory, this paper presents an ongoing research aimed at the study of concept development in microengineering teaching and practice. I will present the respective methodological approach—borrowed from a French tradition of work psychology—for studying concept development from interactions in work and teaching activities. Expected results and implications for engineering education will also be discussed.

2023, Vergara Wilson, Martín, Kloetzer, Laure

Concepts are at the core of human psychological experience. By means of them, we can communicate, understand and collaborate with each other. Within each community, concepts have been learned and can be taught. They are of capital importance for education in every level and for work activities. Concepts have been the object of study of different disciplines and in different contexts for many years. Despite their importance and the attention they have received, both common sense and psychological science understand concepts in an oversimplified way that has consequences for research and teaching. Early in the past century, Vygotsky studied the phenomena of concepts and their development in what ended up addressing most of the loose ends that remain in current dominant psychological and educational perspectives. In this article, we review the main, hegemonic perspectives on concepts in psychology, particularly one of the mayor research fields in educational psychology (Research on Conceptual Change), to present later some cross-cutting criticisms to those approaches that will become our touchstone for a sound theory of concepts. Then we present the Vygotskian approach to concept development, and the methodological implications derived from the dialectical framework in which it is inscribed. Finally, extending the Vygotskian approach beyond child development, we present a method developed in French work psychology, the Activity Clinics approach, and its potential for studying the development of concepts in work activities.