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In this chapter, we examine a significant shift in research in the learning sciences, mathematics education, and science education that increasingly attends to the co-construction of power and learning. We review articles in these fields that embody a new sense of theoretical and methodological possibilities and dilemmas, brewing at the intersections of critical social theory and the methodological approaches of interaction analysis and microgenetic analysis. We organize our review into three thematic categories: (1) the dynamic construction of identity and ideology, (2) attending to the organization of a learning environment, and (3) leveraging and repurposing tools. Reading across these thematic areas, we identify and outline a burgeoning subfield that we term critical interaction and microgenetic analysis. By bringing this collection of articles together, this chapter provides collective epistemic and empirical weight to claims of power and learning as co-constituted and co-constructed through interactional, microgenetic, and structural dynamics. In our conclusions, we suggest six analytical commitments that are important to hold when engaging in critical interaction and microgenetic analysis.

Background: Tinkering, an ad hoc approach to solving a problem, involves manipulating objects to characterize and build knowledge about a particular system in an exploratory way, often with the goal of getting some product/idea to produce desired behavior. Tinkering contrasts more deliberate activity toward understanding how a phenomenon works. Purpose: Some researchers have argued that tinkering is an unproductive engineering design practice because it does not always lead to progress in design and/or conceptual learning while others have argued for tinkering as a productive design practice. We speak to this disagreement regarding the productivity of tinkering for novice designers by closely analyzing tinkering episodes. Design/Method: We present a microgenetic account of two tinkering episodes to contribute to a more refined understanding of what tinkering is. The research setting is in a summer camp for high school girls using a design-based Arduino component. Results: Our analyses demonstrate that tinkering is neither universally productive nor unproductive in engineering design; we show that tinkering can help participants make progress toward some instructional goals such as supporting the engagement of students in some engineering design practices. We also show that tinkering can hinder progress toward other goals such as developing a robust solution to a design problem. Conclusions: We argue for a more nuanced understanding of productivity (of tinkering and other design practices), which is local and defined with respect to specific goals and actors.

Professional problem-solving practice in physics and engineering relies on mathematical sense making--reasoning that leverages coherence between formal mathematics and conceptual understanding. A key question for physics education is how well current instructional approaches develop students' mathematical sense making. We introduce an assessment paradigm that operationalizes a typically unmeasured dimension of mathematical sense making: use of calculations on qualitative problems and use of conceptual arguments on quantitative problems. Three assessment items embodying this calculation-concept crossover assessment paradigm illustrate how mathematical sense making can positively benefit students' problem solving, leading to more efficient, insightful, and accurate solutions. These three assessment items were used to evaluate the efficacy of an instructional approach focused on developing students' mathematical sense making skills. In a quasi-experimental study, three parallel lecture sections of first-semester, introductory physics were compared: two mathematical sense making sections, one with an experienced instructor and one with a novice instructor, and a traditionally taught section, as a control group. Compared to the control group, mathematical sense making groups used calculation-concept crossover approaches more often and gave more correct answers on the crossover assessment items, but they did not give more correct answers to associated standard problems. In addition, although students' postcourse epistemological views on problem-solving coherence were associated with their crossover use, they did not fully account for the differences in crossover approach use between the mathematical sense making and control groups. These results demonstrate a new assessment paradigm for detecting a typically unmeasured dimension of mathematical sense making and provide evidence that a targeted instructional approach can enhance engagement with mathematical sense making in introductory physics.

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] Common models of curricular development in physics education research (PER) have typically involved a hierarchical relationship between researchers and students, where researchers lead the design and testing of curriculum for students. We draw from work in students as partners and related fields in order to codesign curriculum in partnership with students. Such work has the potential to disrupt typical hierarchical relationships and interactions between students and faculty by involving students in the process of making curricular decisions. We invited undergraduate students to participate in a partnership to codesign a set of curricular materials for topics in quantum mechanics that students often struggle with. Four undergraduate students, one PER graduate student, and one PER faculty member met for a series of codesign meetings. We collected videotapes of the meetings, written artifacts, and meeting reflections. This paper presents a fine-grained analysis of one interaction in which researchers attempted to create space for students to contribute to decision making about how the collaboration should proceed. Through analyzing the complex dynamics of how participants negotiated decision-making space, including characterizing the types of decisions that were made, we describe how access to those decisions were opened up or cut off, and how those decisions contested or reaffirmed participants' roles. Working towards partnership is a complex and messy process: attempts to open up space for some forms of decision making closed off access to other forms of decision making. In some ways, the interactions between the participants also reified the traditional student and faculty roles that the partnership had intended to disrupt. Through closely analyzing these dynamics, we aim to self-critically reflect on the challenges and tensions that emerge in codesign partnerships. We discuss our own areas for growth and speak to implications for more responsible partnerships.

Background: While there has been increasing recognition of the importance of attending to students' views about what counts as knowing and learning a STEM field, surveys that measure these "epistemological" beliefs are often used in ways that implicitly assume the fields, e.g., "physics," to be a single domain about which students might have sophisticated or naïve beliefs. We demonstrate this is not necessarily the case and argue for attending to possible differences in students' epistemological beliefs across different sub-domains of physics. In modern physics and quantum mechanics courses for engineering and physics students, we administered a set of modified Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) items. Each selected item was turned into two items, with the word "physics" changed to "classical physics" in one and "quantum physics" in the other. Results: We found significant splits between students' survey responses about classical vs. quantum physics on some items, both pre- and post-instruction. In classical physics, as compared to quantum physics, students were more likely to report the salience of real-world connections and the possibility of combining mathematical and conceptual reasoning during problem solving. Conclusions: These findings suggest that attending to sub-domain specificity of students' beliefs about physics can be fruitful and ought to influence our instructional choices.

Objective: Premature rupture of membranes (PROMs) is one of the common causes of preterm birth which has a major contribution to maternal and fetal adverse outcomes. Infection may be contributing to premature rupture of membrane or it may be a consequence. The aim of our study was to assess the common pathogens colonizing the endocervix in women with PROM and pregnancy outcomes. Materials and methods: In this prospective observational study, seventy antenatal women with PROM after 24 weeks of gestation were studied from January 2020 to July 2021. Two swabs were taken from the endocervix. Swabs were subjected to gram staining and culture. The association of endocervical culture positivity with chorioamnionitis, mode of delivery, and neonatal outcome was evaluated. Results: In the study, 24.2% of endocervical cultures were positive. The pathogens isolated were Escherichia coli in 11.4%, Staphylococcus hemolyticus in 2.9%, budding yeast in 2.9%, 1.4% each with Klebsiella pneumoniae and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The culture was positive in 30.3% of subjects with preterm PROM and 18.9% with PROM (p = 0.40). The incidence of chorioamnionitis was higher with endocervical culture-positive cases as compared to culture-negative women (p = 0.05). There was no association of endocervical culture positivity with the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission, duration of membrane rupture, and mode of delivery. Conclusion: In our study, the most common bacteria inhabiting the endocervix in PROM was E. coli. There is a definite influence of bacterial endocervical colonization on pregnancy outcomes but further studies are needed to corroborate the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]