EAGER: Investigating the rapid transition from face-to-face to exclusively online engineering laboratory classes in an Electrical and Computer Engineering program

新冠肺炎全球卫生危机迫使教育工作者迅速转向在线教学方法。虽然这项工作对教师来说已经很困难了，但对于那些设计了一部分带有动手实验指导的课程的教师来说，就像许多STEM课程一样，这尤其具有挑战性。为了提供有效的面对面教学，在利用在线教育和在线实验工具提供的好处的同时，保持实验室相同的教育和课程价值是很重要的。该项目将超越COVID-19危机的需求，因为它调查了在工程实验室课程中使用全套在线实验室模块的影响。本研究评估了教师对采用的抗拒、学生的动机和自我调节，以及用户体验和成功的影响。长期以来，在线实验室（远程和虚拟）一直被认为是提高学生教育体验的有希望的选择，但广泛采用受到限制。当前的环境允许我们通过将一个学期的、动手的、体验式的学习组件重新铸造成一套完全在线的教学实验室来建立一个成功的用例。然而，快速部署完全在线的工程实验和教学挑战了我们的主导教学模式，特别是在传统的面对面教育机构中，教师和学生可能会对在线教育技术表现出抵制，但也会令人惊讶地采用。虽然与相当大的挑战相关，但建立和实证调查这样一个成功的用例为知识生成提供了高回报的机会，同时也为全国工程项目的教师和学生带来了好处。本项目将利用在线实验室和集成在线教学模块的开发和部署，调查使用专门的在线教学模式对基础电气和计算机工程实验课程的影响。为了实现这一目标，该项目将回答以下三个研究问题：A)教师如何经历自上而下的强制、时间限制和快速过渡到工程课程中完全基于在线的实验室模块，以及对大规模接受教育技术的持续抵制？B)通过自我调节和动机调查，完全在线的实验室教学和在线实验如何影响学生的学习体验？C)哪些用户体验因素影响了在工程课程和课程中引入专门的在线实验活动的成功？研究设计将包括三个重点：教师、学生和用户体验角度。所有的推力将采用汇合、平行、混合方法的研究方法，使用定量和定性的措施。通过理论框架，包括创新扩散、传播范式、学生认知和情感参与以及以用户为中心的设计，该项目将深入了解如何在工程教育环境中成功部署在线实验。因此，该项目将a)导致教育技术传播的框架，具体到在线工程实验室，并反映效率和适合的因素，b)为以学生为中心的在线实验提供一个模型，并为学生提供明确的指导方针，以及c)为设计以用户为中心的在线实验活动提供一个成功因素的综合模型。这项研究的结果也将扩大工程学科的范围和影响，这些学科在历史上需要面对面的设施来提供完整的实验室指导。该项目将使在线实验体验能够支持核心教育学习目标，同时也满足多样化、移动和地理分布的工程劳动力的挑战。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The COVID-19 global health crisis has forced educators to rapidly shift to online instruction methods. While this effort is already difficult for faculty, it is particularly challenging for instructors who have designed a portion of their curricula with hands-on laboratory instruction, as in the case for many STEM courses. To offer the effective education in-person instruction affords, it is important to maintain the same educational and curricular value of laboratories while taking advantage of benefits that online education and online experimentation tools offer. This project will transcend the demands of the COVID-19 crisis as it investigates the impact of using a full set of online laboratory modules in an engineering laboratory course. Impacts on faculty resistance to adoption, student motivation and self-regulation, and user experience and success are evaluated in this study. Online labs (remote and virtual) have long been considered promising options to enhance the student educational experience, but broad adoption has been limited. The current circumstances allow us to establish a successful use case by re-casting a semester-long, hands-on, experiential learning component into a fully online set of instructional labs. Nevertheless, rapidly deploying fully online experimentation and instruction in engineering challenges our dominant instructional model, especially in a traditional face-to-face institution in which both faculty and students may show resistance but also surprising adoption of online education technology. While associated with considerable challenges, establishing and empirically investigating such a successful use case offers high reward opportunities for knowledge generation, as well as benefits for faculty and students in engineering programs across the nation.This project will leverage the development and deployment of online labs and integrated online instruction modules to investigate the impact of using an exclusively online instructional mode for a fundamental electrical and computer engineering laboratory course. To reach this goal, the project will answer the following three research questions: A) How do faculty experience a top-down mandated, time-constrained, and rapid transition to exclusively online-based laboratory modules in engineering courses along the continuum of resistance towards the wholesale embrace of educational technologies? B) How does exclusively online laboratory instruction and online experimentation impact students’ learning experiences in terms of engagement, investigated through self-regulation and motivation? C) What user experience factors influence the success of introducing exclusively online experimentation activities into engineering courses and curricula? The research design will comprise three thrusts: faculty, student, and user experience perspective. All thrusts will employ a convergent, parallel, mixed-methods research approach using quantitative and qualitative measures. Informed by theoretical frameworks including the diffusion of innovation, the propagation paradigm, student cognitive and emotional engagement, and user-centered design, this project will develop in-depth knowledge on how online experimentation can be successfully deployed in engineering education settings. As a result, this project will a) lead to a framework for educational technology propagation, specific to online engineering labs and reflecting factors for both efficacies and fit, b) inform a model for student-centered online experimentation with explicit guidelines for student support, and c) inform a comprehensive model of success factors for designing user-centered online experimentation activities. The results of this research will also expand the reach and impact of engineering disciplines that have historically required face-to-face facilities to provide integral laboratory instruction. This project will enable online experimentation experiences that support core education learning objectives while also meeting the challenges of a diverse, mobile, and geographically distributed engineering workforce.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.