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Modeling the Graduate Engineering Student Experience: Combining
Socialization Experiences with Individual Development
The aim of this study was to develop a framework for examining the experiences of engineering
students during graduate study. The proposed model was developed as the result of nine months
of ethnographically guided observations and interviews with students and faculty members in an
electrical and computer engineering research group. Upon leaving the setting, the field notes and
interview transcripts were analyzed deductively using codes suggested by the literature, and
inductively by developing emergent themes not explained by existing literature. The result is a
theoretical framework that shows how students gain various forms of identity capital during the
process of socialization to a community of practice (research group). We then use this model to
examine the experiences of a first year PhD student and present these findings. Finally
implications for the use of this model in other settings are explored, as well as directions for
future research.
I.
Introduction
Unlike their counterparts in many of the social science fields, the majority of engineering
students spend their graduate school years as part of a research team or group. These groups are
generally organized around the research specialty of a primary advisor, or a team of faculty
advisors depending on the size of the research group. Doctoral students, master’s program
students and post doctoral researchers are grouped together under the guidance of these faculty
advisors, often in shared lab and office spaces. While considerable research has been undertaken
regarding the learning and development of individual doctoral students, there remains a need to
study the development of students engaged in research groups.
The use of research teams or groups is not unique to the engineering disciplines, however the
experiences of graduate students has been noted to differ from students of other disciplines.
Turner (2006) cited the benefits of using research teams as a approach to graduate training.
Specifically she advocates the use of research teams as a way to train graduate students to allow
for a community of scholars to share knowledge and exchange ideas. Her conclusion is that this
training serves as an apprentice-type program which helps prepare students to conduct their own
research and will aid in the transition from a student to a young scholar. Her work emphasizes
the value of studying socialization in the context of a research group, to examine how faculty
members interact with students, and how student community develops.
A large body of literature exists that focuses on the socialization of graduate students, often from
disciplines other than engineering. One socialization study examined the experiences of doctoral
students in high and low completing departments (Gardner 2009). This study considered the
disciplinary differences in doctoral education, noting that electrical and computer engineering
was often considerably different than the other five departments studied, and represented the
lowest completing department. The four themes that emerged from this study included: support,
self direction, ambiguity and transition. Interestingly, the author found that engineering students
(unlike all of the other disciplines) depended more on faculty for support than their peers, and
attributes this to the high percentage (over 50%) of international students in the engineering
department. Engineering students also experienced the theme of self direction differently than
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students from other departments. The engineering students felt that self direction meant learning
how to do research independently, something that you had to teach yourself because that
information could not be obtained from a class. Students from other non engineering
departments cited their peers as a key mechanism for learning new material. This is consistent
with the findings of Nettles and Millett (2006), who noted that engineering students had a high
level of satisfaction in their relationship with faculty, but a low level of satisfaction in their peer
interactions. Finally, relating to transition, students in engineering again offered the majority of
the comments, which the author attributes to the various transition issues that international
students must face in addition to the transition from undergraduate to graduate school.
Several other researchers have discussed the socialization of graduate students in the form of a
multi-stage process, and are representative of the developmental nature of the socialization
process (Baird 1993). Examples include the four stages presented by Weidman and coworkers
(2001; 2003) and Lovitts (2001) that express socialization in regard to prior anticipatory
socialization to the graduate school environment, through culmination of the degree and entrance
into the profession. While these previous studies have paved the way for future research, they
fall short of explaining the complexity of the graduate student experience as they focus more on
individual program elements, such as coursework and qualifying exams, rather than the personal
and group transformation that occur during the graduate school experience. The inherent
complexity of this problem requires additional work that serves to operationalize how
socialization is manifested during graduate education.
The purpose of this study was to develop a means of operationalizing the socialization of
engineering graduate students by considering both social and psychological factors that
contribute to graduate student development. This study was guided by the following research
questions.
1. What experiences contribute to the socialization of engineering students to
research group communities?
2. How do engineering graduate students use identity capital to gain access to
and navigate through research group communities?
These research questions were addressed using ethnographically guided observations and
interviews of engineering students and faculty from one research group at a large research
institution. From these data, a combination of deductive and inductive data analysis methods
was employed to arrive at the proposed framework. The following sections discuss the
deductive theory from existing literature, methods employed in the inductive analysis of the data,
the synthesis of these data sources into a proposed model and finally these use of this model to
examine the first year experience of one student in the group. We conclude with implications for
other disciplines and directions for future work.
II.
Literature
Upon exiting the observation setting, several existing theories were considered to explain the
observed experiences of graduate engineering students. Theoretical frameworks considered
included socialization (Van Maanen and Schein 1979), identity development (Burke and Reitzes
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1981; Burke and Reitzes 1991; CÔTÉ 1996; Stryker and Burke 2000), and communities of
practice (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998; Wenger, McDermott et al. 2002). As
previously discussed, much of the current literature on graduate education uses socialization as a
framework for exploring the experiences of graduate students. Socialization is the process
through which an individual learns to adopt the values, skills, attitudes, norms, and knowledge
needed for membership in a community (Merton 1957; Bess 1978; Pruitt 1978; Van Maanen and
Schein 1979; Kuh and Whitt 1988; Ward and Kennedy 1993; Salomon and Perkins 1998).
Socialization plays an important role in the graduate school experience, and when unsuccessful,
may contribute to the decision to depart the degree program. Where graduate student
socialization differs from professional socialization is in the requirement that graduate students
become socialized not only to the graduate school environment, but to the professional role as
well (Golde and Walker 2006). Issues relating to graduate student socialization are disciplinespecific, meaning that studies within graduate education must focus on a particular departmental
and environmental context to gain an understanding of the relationships involved (Golde and
Walker 2006; Nettles and Millett 2006).
A specific example of a socialization process would be a student entering a community of
practice. The concept of a community of practice was proposed by Wenger as a population that
defines itself along three dimensions: mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and a shared
repertoire (Wenger 1998). Community is formed when members engage in joint activities and
discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to
learn from each other. The defining features of a community of practice are authentic problems
and an apprenticeship-type model of learning and becoming a member, much like a graduate
engineering research laboratory (Newstetter, Kurz-Milcke et al. 2004).
The final theoretical guidance for this study was identity development. For the purpose of this
study, identity was conceptualized as socially constructed, while allowing for individual
contributions. After consulting a wide range of identity literature, the theory of identity capital
(CÔTÉ 1996; CÔTÉ 1997; CÔTÉ and Schwartz 2002) emerged as the overarching framework
that would tie socialization and community of practice theory together. Identity capital theory
states that “to be a player one must first establish a stable sense of self which is bolstered by the
following: social and technical skills in a variety of areas, effective behavioral repertoires,
psychological development to more advanced levels and associations in key occupational and
social networks (pg 425)” (CÔTÉ 1996). In basic terms an individual will invest their personal
resources in a certain identity (or identities) and engage in a series of exchanges with members of
a group to which they wish to belong. An individual can draw on tactics such as situated
identities (adjusting ones behavior to suit those of others in a given situation), however “the key
is for an individual to form and sustain an identity pragmatically situated in the
social/occupational matrix (pg425)” (CÔTÉ 1996). An individual uses their personal identity
resources to obtain acceptance in a community, which many be social, educational, or
occupational. These resources, or assets, may be either tangible or intangible. Tangible assets
are socially visible, such as educational certifications, position in a group, nationality, gender or
communication skills. These are often used to obtain initial access to social and institutional
spheres where one wants to be a member. Identity capital also relies on intangible resources,
which might include exploration of commitments, self efficacy, critical thinking, and other
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character attributes that give individual capacities in which to negotiate and understand the social
and organizational hurdles they are likely to encounter (CÔTÉ 1996; CÔTÉ and Schwartz 2002).
The community of practice framework provides a way to both explore and operationalize
graduate research groups, specifically the differences in community formation in the presence of
international diversity. The three domains of mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared
repertoire represent socialization conditions that are realized differently for different disciplines
as well as individuals with different cultural backgrounds. The addition of an identity lens
(including cultural considerations) expands the model to include individual social and
psychological differences and influences that may contribute to how members socialize within
the community. In the following section I present the integration of these theories into a working
theoretical framework for the proposed research study.
III.
Methods:
The overall research methodology for this project was ethnographically guided research
methods, including formal and informal interviews, lengthy periods of observation and
participation in most research group activities. Ethnography is a strategy of inquiry where the
researcher studies an intact cultural group in a naturalistic setting over a prolonged period of time
(Creswell 2009), in an attempt to describe and interpret the shared values and learned patterns of
values, behaviors, beliefs and language of a group (Creswell 2007). An ethnographic approach
is often necessary when the purpose of the research is to understand how people’s beliefs and
values guide their actions and understanding of those actions (Rossman and Rallis 2003). The
focus on socialization and identity made ethnographic methods the most informed choice. As a
result, ethnography combines field work, research design, and various data collection methods to
produce culturally and personally situated descriptions, interpretations and representations of
people or groups of people (Tedlock 2000). This was deemed especially important due to the
identity related social and cultural nature of the research questions. As characterized by Van
Maanen (1988), the current study design is a realist ethnography. This is a type of ethnography
where the research takes an objective approach to reporting information on the participants in the
site. This is in contrast to a critical approach, where the research advocates for groups typically
marginalized by society (Creswell 2007).
A. Setting and Participants:
The setting for the ethnography was one graduate engineering research group in electrical and
computer engineering and a large public university. This research group was purposefully
selected to represent the demographics of the rest of the electrical and computer engineering
department, including the international diversity found in many engineering disciplines. A list of
the primary research group participants is listed in Table 1. There were several students and
additional faculty members that were present in the lab on a very limited basis and were omitted
from the table for brevity.
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Table 1. Participant Demographic Information
Participant
Gender
Country of
Origin
Andy
Male
Belize
Caleb
Talia
Manuel
Tao
Sal
Rao
Ben
Kyle
Kate
Dr. C, Research
Group Advisor
Dr. D, Research
Group Advisor
Male
Female
Male
Male
Male
Male
Male
Male
Female
Male
United States
India
Mexico
China
India
China
United States
United States
United States
Argentina
Male
Mexico
Degree
Program
PhD
PhD
PhD
PhD
PhD
PhD
PhD
M.S
M.S
M.S
Year in Program
5th (graduated
during the study)
1st
2nd
3rd
1st (left midyear)
2nd
1st
2nd
1st
1st
B. Data Collection
When conducting ethnography, the researcher may take advantage of a single or combination of
qualitative data collection and analysis methods. One of the primary methods of data collection
is through participant observation, where the researcher is immersed in the day to day activities
of the group. This may include collecting documents from the setting, sketching the layout of
important group locales, and informal interviews. Observation notes are especially useful to
document interactions between members of the group, and mannerisms of participants that they
might not acknowledge. Regardless of the types of data collected, ethnographic observations
result in lengthy field notes which document the researchers participation in the setting
(Emerson, Fretz et al. 1995) and serve as the basic for future analysis. In addition to informal
interviewing, the researcher may formally interview select participants (key informants) in order
to garner additional details (Spradley 1979; Hermanowicz 2002; Seidman 2005). This is
especially helpful when the researcher wants to know personal information about an individual,
or when attempting to probe specific questions such as identity related constructs.
Data collection for this study contained ethnographic observations and interviews. A total of
eight interviews were collected from graduate students and faculty advisors. Semi structured
formal interviews were conducted following the procedures prescribed by Hermanowicz (2002)
and Seidman (2005). Informal interviews were also accomplished as part of the ethnographic
fieldwork. Observation data was collected via a graduate research assistant who shadowed
selected research groups for up to 20 hours per week, paying special attention to be present at lab
group meetings and other key events such as social gatherings, and seminars. The methods
prescribed by Emerson et al (1995) for taking ethnographic field notes were used along with data
collection procedures discussed in Fetterman (1998).
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C. Ethnographic Data Analysis
As with many qualitative research traditions, data analysis in ethnography is integrated into the
data collection phase rather than undertaken at the end. The aim in ethnography is to describe the
culture, specifically the beliefs and values that guide people’s behavior and understanding
(Rossman and Rallis 2003). Analysis of the interview transcripts and field notes followed a dual
coding strategy, with the first iteration using a deductive approach and the second iteration using
inductive methods to allow additional themes to emerge. The following sections describe the
resulting analysis for both identity capital as well as socialization.
1. Identity Capital
The deductive themes were derived from the literature on identity capital for both tangible and
intangible assets as shown in Table 2. Thematic coding (Strauss and Corbin 1998) provided a
structured means of deductive analysis. Additional codes emerged from the use of an open
coding strategy proposed by Charmaz (2006) which utilizes a grounded theory approach. This
dual strategy was deemed important to both situate the existing literature in the current study as
well as explore themes that were not present in current models of graduate education.
Table 2. Identity Capital Codes from the Deductive and Inductive Data Analysis
Deductive
Inductive
Tangible
 Nationality
 Acknowledged a leader in the group
 Gender
 First name basis with faculty
 Spoken Language
 Undergraduate Degree Location
(same or different institution)
 Degrees and Certification
 Having a research project
 Physical Appearance
Intangible
 Self Efficacy
 Responsibility to the group
 Self Monitoring
 Perceived role within the group
 Goal setting ability
 Reflection
 Ability to future, anticipate
Many of these forms of identity capital were manifested in the way that students talk about an
individual when they are not in the room. In the case of students, identity capital was visible
through their ability and confidence to engage the faculty as well as their peers in both technical
and social domains. The various forms of identity capital shown in Table 2 were acquired
through the myriad socialization activities which students participated in. Analysis of
socialization is discussed more fully in the next section.
1. Socialization
Using the open coding approach prescribed by Charmaz (2006), we explored the specific
socialization experiences that were present in a graduate engineering research group. These
codes were reviewed through several iterations and grouped into three main themes: academic
activities, social activities and professional activities. The result of this analysis is shown in
Table 3.
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Table 3. Socialization Themes and Codes
Academic (Class work)
 Taking classes together (peer interactions)
Activities
 Working on homework with other lab students (peer
interactions)
Professional
 Presenting work at the weekly group meeting
(Research) Activities
 Individual meetings with advisors
 Discussion of research in the lab with other students
 Group research projects
 Conference presentations
Social Activities
 Group sports
 Happy hour after the weekly meeting
 Bar-b-cue at faculty members house
 Department social
 Discussion of various non academic activities with other
students in the common lab area
 Dressing up for Halloween (or other holidays)
Many of the socialization activities were the result of the common lab space shared by the
students and the research group’s bi-weekly meetings. This research group had a common lab
space accessible to all of the students in the group. The lab featured large tables where students
could work together on homework or discus their research. The lab also featured a fairly
comprehensive kitchen and work shop. The faculty member’s offices were immediately adjacent
to the student lab, and the faculty would routinely drop by the lab space for coffee from the
kitchen or just to chat with students. The group also held bi-weekly meetings where students
would present their work to their peers and the faculty, which served as a starting point for much
of the socialization of new students.
From the analysis of both the socialization of students as well as the manifestation of identity
capital, we were able to synthesize these results into a theoretical framework that can be used to
model both the individual and group aspects of graduate student socialization
IV.
Proposed Model for Studying Graduate Engineering Students
Using the resulting codes for both the exploration of identity capital and socialization of graduate
students to the research group community we have established the following working model for
examining graduate education in engineering departments, shown in Figure 1.
This model starts with identity capital as both an initial starting point and as the metric for
continued acquisition of assets that allow an individual to enter and sustain themselves in a
community of practice. Membership in a community of practice is based on the development of
mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire (Wenger 1998; Wenger,
McDermott et al. 2002). These characteristics of a community of practice are a result of the
collective and individual identity capital of its members. Membership in the community is not
equal, and generally assumes an apprentice type model where newcomers experience access to
the community in a different way from more experienced members.
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Figure 1 Proposed Theoretical Framework
Finally, socialization is the process by which an individual learns to adopt the values attitudes
and norms needed for membership in a community (Van Maanen and Schein 1979; Weidman,
Twale et al. 2001; Weidman and Stein 2003). As a process, socialization connects the individual
acquisition of assets (identity capital) to the collective nature of a community of practice. It
should be noted that the model presented in Figure 1 represents a single community, and
participants will often attempt to gain and sustain membership in more than one community.
Also, as will be discussed further, attaining full membership in one community will often lead to
starting the cycle over again in another community. A final important consideration for this
model is that attainment of full membership in a community will be realized differently for
different individuals, and represents more of a “moving target” than a single fixed point.
In the following section we will use this model to explain the experiences of Caleb, a first year
doctoral student in the electrical and computer engineering research group.
V.
A Students Perspective: Caleb’s Story
In this section I will discuss the experiences of Caleb, a first year PhD student in electrical and
computer engineering. This is Caleb’s story:
Caleb was born and raised in a small town in West Virginia. Located in the heart of Appalachia,
the town was home to around 700 residents. Caleb graduated from high school knowing that he
wanted to attend college. He applied to several universities, all with prestigious engineering
programs. His choice of his current institution was based on the ranking of the universities
electrical and computer engineering program, and its location in a small town on the east coast.
He chose engineering to make money. Caleb wanted to know that he would have a job where he
could be secure is his position, and provide for himself and his family. He did not have the
money to attend college, and took out student loans to pay his tuition.
It took several years before Caleb became comfortable at his undergraduate institution. The
university was in a small town, but nothing compared where he grew up. He was a string
student, making good grades and participating in several internships during the latter years in
his program. At the beginning of his senior year he was approached by several faculty members
from the electrical engineering department about perhaps staying for graduate school. They
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discussed the opportunities that were available, the types of projects that they were working on
and the possibility for funding his graduate education. At first Caleb did not consider the
possibility of graduate school, it was something that “you heard about but not something that
people normally do” and he wanted to get out in the world and make a living so he could pay off
his student loans. He held off on the decision until the summer after his senior year. He was
interning with a large company in the DC metro area, and making excellent money when he
realized that he needed to know a little bit more about his discipline before he could do the
things he really wanted to do. He contacted the faculty from his undergraduate institution
regarding their previous discussion. He went back to meet with the faculty members, and after
hearing about how he would get paid for conducting research while completing his PhD, he
decided to begin graduate school the following fall.
After spending the summer in a big city, Caleb expressed how coming back to the small
university town felt like coming home. He did not feel like a student anymore, but that he was
“part of the university”. He had some expectations about what graduate school was going to be
like, and he was nervous. He commented that he “thought it was going to be a lot of busy work…
that I was going to get thrown in and be completely over my head”. He was also worried about
his level of preparation, “that there were going to be things expected of me that I wasn’t
prepared for. They were going to hand me a project and say come back in three years”. Despite
these fears Caleb started in the fall of last year, ready to do whatever it took to be successful.
School started in August with Caleb taking a few classes, getting the code to the group lab area,
and attending the bi-weekly meetings. The lab area is quite large, with students sitting at desks
around the perimeter of the office and large computer work stations and a meeting table with
whiteboard towards the center of the room. There are approximately 20 to 30 students in the
group at any given time, and all of them can fit in this space. There is also a kitchen and
workshop area. During the bi-weekly meetings approximately four or five of the graduate
students present work on all manner of projects, and the four faculty members and other students
are available for feedback. The first few meetings Caleb sat back from the main table in one of
the single chairs and watched intently. His eyes were always on the speaker, like he could soak
up all of the information. He was quiet at the meetings, noting that “I have things to offer, but I
want to be the humble learner, I’m the new guy”.
Over the course of the semester he focused on his class work, spending a lot of time in the lab
area getting to know some of the other students. The fact that Caleb completed his undergrad at
this same institution meant that he recognized a few of the other new graduate students that
completed their undergraduate careers at the same place. There were many new faces as well;
students had come from around the world to join this research group, many of which had been
there for several years. He spent several hours a day in the lab when he wasn’t in class, and his
advisor had given him several papers to read to get him ready to start his research project. His
PhD research would not officially kick off till October, when the money from the contract came
in.
By the end of the first semester, Caleb was socializing with other members of the group and was
really anxious to “get his hands dirty” with the research project. He was sitting closer to the
main table at meetings, and contributing to the conversation when he felt comfortable. He never
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offered feedback to any of the students that presented at the bi-weekly meetings, but he would
talk to Alex, the most senior student after the meeting when he didn’t understand something that
was said. He had also teamed up with some of the other lab students that were taking the same
classes together to work on homework in the lab.
Following the winter break Caleb really hit the ground running on his research project and
spent more and more time in the lab. He spent less time taking classes, and more time on
research. He enjoys the research immensely, but laments that he has so much less free time to
do other things. His personal project team has grown to approximately three members, and they
meet separately in addition to the large group bi-weekly meets. He now had his own office,
because some of the project material is proprietary. One of his favorite parts of the project is
working with some of his project team members to come up with fun “code words” for the things
they are doing so that they can still present in the large group meetings. He has grown
increasingly confident in his research ability and routinely speaks in the large group meetings,
directly addressing the faculty and senior students. He feels responsible to the group to make
sure that things get done, that other people are counting on him now. Socially he has lost some
connections with his friends from other departments, and wonders how to make other social
connections. He is living alone now, and is worried about finding other engineering friends
outside of his research group. He will be leaving the university for a few weeks at the end of the
semester, but will spend the majority of the summer making progress on his research.
Using the model presented in section four, we can look at Caleb’s development during his first
year of his PhD program through his socialization to the research group and acquisition of
identity capital. We can first consider his tangible assets; those that are socially visible. Caleb
comes from a very small Appalachian town in West Virginia. He is a white American male from
a working class background, and he completed his undergraduate degree at the same institution
that he is attending for graduate school. Although Caleb experienced some socially visible
developments during the first year of graduate school, the majority of his development occurred
through socialization and acquisition of intangible assets. A summary of several intangible
assets are presented in Table 4. This table presents the type of intangible asset, and the evidence
presented by Caleb from interview quotes or documented observations.
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Table 4. Caleb’s Acquisition of intangible assets during his first year of graduate school
Intangible
Beginning
Middle
End
Asset
“I was afraid
“I’ve read everything and I am
Observed: Wants to
Content
that the classes ready to get my hands dirty”
explain things to me,
knowledge
were going to
technical information,
be difficult, that
enjoying understanding
I wasn’t going
what he is doing and
to be prepared”
wants to talk to others
about it
“I’m not quick Observed: Caleb has started
Observed: Caleb will
Confidence
(self efficacy) to jump up and asking questions to other students openly address the
say that I know and faculty members after the
faculty members and
the answer even meetings.
older students during the
when I do”
meetings and in front
other the group
“I feel like I should be
Responsibility “I am more of a “I feel completely different. If I
humble
don’t produce then I am in
able to offer suggestions
to the group
learner”
trouble, there is no excuse. I feel to other people “
really guilty if I spend more than
a week not working, or 4 or 5
days go by and I am not making
progress”
Finally we can consider the types of socialization activities that enabled Caleb to acquire these
intangible assets. Caleb spent a lot of time in the lab area, both working alone on research and
homework and engaging the other students in conversation about a variety of academic and non
academic topics. The majority of the socialization occurs in this lab space because the proximity
of students in the lab makes interacting with other students possible all day long. The lab gives
the students somewhere to go.
I have somewhere to go. If there is a conversation going on, then I can learn
something and take something out of it. To have that space is a real big part. If
we didn’t have a place to go with tables and enough room, things would be a
whole lot different. We would not be as close, or whoever is close would not be
as close. It’s where people spend their time together
In addition to the social benefits of the lab, students work together on class assignments and
research. Caleb noted that one of the academic benefits of working in the lab is the chance
bounce ideas off other students;
we both get so excited that we are so close to getting the other one to figure it out.
We get a little loud sometimes and the older students look at us funny. Sometimes
were have to read papers that are hard to understand but within the group of
students we can usually figure it out
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There is a sense of reliance among the students; dependency on each other for support, both
social and academic. Caleb talks about the “natural hierarchy” in the group, but that it is “flat
place in terms of communication”
I know how busy the faculty are, and the quickest route to the simplest solution is
to go to another student, sometimes older and sometimes not. There is a lot of
criss-crossing between the students, but when we all get stuck we go to the
professor. Most of my learning is from the students, not the professor.
Other socialization experiences are the social events such as “lab lunch” and happy hour on
Fridays after the bi-weekly meetings. The group even dressed up for Halloween, with full
faculty member participation.
Overall the graduate student experience is a complex process to model, and this study shows one
way that we can attempt to operationalize how students develop during their time as engineering
graduate students.
VI.
Implications
The model presented in the current study showcased a way that researchers can attempt to further
explain the social and psychological experiences of graduate engineering students. This model
also has implications for the study of other disciplines that organize their graduate students into
research groups, such as the lab or health sciences. Future work will include examining
additional student experiences using this model for several other research groups to test its
transferability. In addition, the results of this study will be used to create a survey that will be
administered to a population of graduate students from several other research institutions.
Other directions for future work should include studies that explore how students learn in these
informal settings and how this impacts the dynamics of the group.
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