A Rhizoanalysis of the Ontario Science Centre School's Innovation Project

This case study research examines the Innovation Project of the Ontario Science Centre Science School, Toronto. This is a formal education institution situated within an informal science centre. Groups of six students each engaged in a semester-long project to design an exhibit for the Ontario Science Centre. These groups were designed to be complex. Qualitative data from interviews, group meetings, and social media postings were collected and analyzed for two groups. A comparatively new analysis technique, rhizoanalysis, was implemented and resulted in physical maps representing the interactions among students as they engaged with the Innovation Project. The conclusions indicate that the Innovation Project design and the leadership of teachers from the formal education sector may have inhibited the students engaging with the Innovation Project fully, as was intended. Nevertheless, rhizoanalysis proved to be an effective way to discover new information about student interactions during group work.