ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on an example of an inductive, iterative, and recursive multimodal approach, uniquely suited for collaborative elementary engineering design challenges, but also applicable to a wide range of study contexts involving student-student interactions and a heavy focus on materials, tools, and student-produced artifacts. To illustrate these different types of analyses and raise methodological questions, data from a dissertation pilot study on elementary engineering group dynamics will be presented. In K-12 engineering education students may be asked to participate in collaborative design planning, hands-on building, testing, and improvement of a product or process, which requires different skillsets and knowledge compared to planning and conducting a controlled science experiment. The design of the present study, therefore, involved exploration of emerging patterns by tracing the interactional processes at uncertainty episodes across the whole dataset. The field of Interactional Sociolinguistics provides the theoretical constructs that inform the research methods of my program of research in engineering education.
