Networks of Ambiguity in Project-Based Learning: Understanding How Students Experience and Manage Ambiguity in WPI's IQP Experience

Elmes, Katherine

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Networks of Ambiguity in Project-Based Learning: Understanding How Students Experience and Manage Ambiguity in WPI's IQP Experience

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WPI’s global and off-campus IQPs, rich with real-world sponsors/projects and increasingly diverse teams, require that both faculty and students navigate a network of ambiguous situations and relationships. Despite the increasing adoption of project-based learning as a preferred educational model across higher education, and the prevalence of project-based work in STEM careers, research on how to best prepare students and faculty to identify and navigate ambiguity inherent to project-based learning is limited. Seeking to fill this important gap, this graduate thesis advances a pilot qualitative study focused on how students in domestic and off campus IQPs experience and navigate ambiguity in their IQPs. The thesis presents preliminary grounded theory regarding the types of ambiguity experienced by students, how students navigate through the ambiguity, and elements that appear to impact a student’s success in that navigation.

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