Fabíola Stein: The making of scientists: Instructional work and collaboration in everyday research activities

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the accomplishment of situated apprenticeship within everyday research activities, drawing on video-ethnography at a Physical Chemistry research program of a Swedish university. Grounded in the theoretical and methodological perspectives of ethnomethodology and multimodal conversation analysis, it examines a range of activities integral to the everyday work of researchers in three empirical studies. Across the studies, the analyses account for the emergence of instructional work and collaboration, describing how distributions of knowledge are made relevant and negotiated in interaction. 

The first study delves into the context of the laboratory, and examines how a master’s and a doctoral students collaboratively inspect a graph and deal with uncertainties regarding their measurements and findings. Analyzing the emergence of a corrective explanation, the study demonstrates the intertwined achievement of everyday discovery work and situated apprenticeship. The second study focuses on in impromptu conversations in shared offices and labs and at a supervision meeting, examining instances where novices recruit assistance to carry out different research tasks. The analyses show that and how novices orient to local contingencies and accountabilities and, through the design and framing of their requests and the production of accounts, construct and uphold their legitimacy as potential members of the scientific workplace. The third  study focuses on research group meetings, analyzing the use of epistemic disclaimers by senior researchers. The analyses evidence that disclaimers, when mobilized in the context of opening discussions, work to manage expectations about the senior researchers’ knowledge domains and epistemic authority. This, in turn, shows how the participants work to sustain the meetings as environments of peer collaboration and knowledge sharing in the larger context of collaboratively producing scientific knowledge. 

Altogether, the dissertation illuminates processes through which novice researchers are introduced into competent practices of scientific work while simultaneously shedding light on apprenticeship as a bidirectional process. The analyses make visible the local constitution of knowledge and competencies and the interactional organization of research teams as contexts of collaboration and professional practice. The dissertation thus underscores the importance of studying not only what scientists produce but how they learn and collaborate as professionals at work.