Using drawing to study student research experiences

The communities of practice (COP) framework describes learning as a process of navigating one's position of membership within a community of professionals pursuing a set of common goals using established practices. As students navigate their membership within a community like a physics research group, they develop a mental model of the community of practice and use this model to guide their future career decisions. Drawing has been shown to illustrate students' perspectives and experiences, offering important benefits as a source of qualitative information. In this proof-of-concept paper, we explore how a drawing survey can be used to identify elements of a student's COP model in the context of a research group. We describe the development and validation of this drawing survey using the response process evaluation method. This method establishes the degree to which students interpret survey prompts as intended. We then review a sample of seven student drawings made in response to the survey to investigate the degree to which the survey generates sufficient data to examine a student's COP model. Finally, we demonstrate a use case examining N = 23 drawings that allow us to identify patterns and possible differences in responses from different student groups (physics majors and biology majors). We then reflect on this use of a drawing survey by highlighting important aspects of the process and discussing limitations.