"Everything is in the Lab Book”: The Role of the Lab Book Genre in Writing, Knowledge-Making, and Identity Construction in Academic Medical Physics Labs

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the nature and functions of the lab book genre in the discipline of medical physics.Specifically, it investigates how the multimodal nature of the lab book facilitates knowledge-making and identity construction in an academic medical physics community located in a Canadian university.The study employs the theoretical framework of Writing, Activity, and Genre Research (WAGR) in combination with the theoretical notions of communities of practice (CoP) and multimodality.The data collected include observational field notes, multimodal lab books collected from, and semi-structured interviews conducted with, five participants with a range of experience in the academic medical physics community.Findings of the study indicate that the lab book, particularly its multimodal features, serves as an important knowledgemaking artefact within the medical physics community.The genre is found to perform multiple roles, including, but not limited to, providing a means of reifying experimental results and a space for community members to participate and negotiate their professional identities within the discipline of medical physics.Implications for further research of the nature of knowledge in medical physics, as well as implications for multimodal genre analysis, are discussed.

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