Collaborative Research: Research Initiation: Complementary affordances of virtual and physical laboratories for developing engineering epistemic practices

除了能够胜任工程计算，专业工程师必须准备好在团队中有效工作，在上下文中考虑问题，做出基于证据的决策，并坚持从失败中学习。实验室工作提供了专业形成的重要工具，让大学工程专业的学生发展这些技能。成功的实验室任务设计应该提供丰富的机会来发展这些技能，但也必须适应教育环境的限制。本研究将探讨基于同一现实工程过程的虚拟（基于模拟）和物理（动手）实验室为学生的专业做好准备的方式。特别是，我们将调查，如果虚拟和物理实验室模式开发不同的，但互补的技能。所获得的知识将更好地定位工程教育工作者设计和使用虚拟和物理实验室，包括学生受地点限制且可能无法使用物理设备的情况。虽然这项研究将侧重于环境工程的特定过程，但所获得的知识有可能广泛影响所有工程和科学学科的教学和学习实践，这些学科依赖于课程中的实验室调查。所获得的知识也将有助于通过支持在线课程和学位课程增加对STEM学科的访问。最后，我们将通过一名大学教员的有意指导和两名研究生的培训和发展，提高工程教育研究的能力。通过对同一实验室的虚拟和物理版本的四个学生团队的活动进行微观分析，我们将开发实验室模式和教学设计如何影响学生参与认知实践的可转移知识。认知实践是一个群体的成员提出、交流、证明、评估和合法化知识主张的社会组织和互动方式。具体而言，在这个PFE：RIEF项目中，研究和指导活动将围绕环境工程学科的实验室-水处理罐测试实验室的调查组织。罐测试是设计工程师和饮用水处理厂操作员常用的实验室程序，用于优化物理和化学条件，以有效地凝聚，絮凝和沉淀水中的颗粒污染物。这项工作的中心假设是，物理实验室前景社会和物质的认识实践，而虚拟实验室前景社会和概念的认识实践。我们将采用三个主要的数据来源：（1）视频记录和研究人员观察的团队，因为他们完成了实验室;（2）半结构化的刺激回忆访谈的学生和实验室教师;和，（3）学生的工作产品。我们将使用话语分析从学生录音和编码的刺激回忆访谈来回答以下研究问题：（1）在什么方式和在什么程度上进行实验，在物理模式，以开发一个过程的建议影响学生的工程认知实践？(2)以虚拟模式进行实验以开发过程建议，以何种方式和何种程度影响学生的工程认识实践？(3)各实验室模式的学生如何应对被“卡”？学生对科学/工程的迭代性质的看法和他们对错误的容忍度是否取决于实验室模式提供的教学设计？该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得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的支持。

In addition to being able to competently perform engineering calculations, professional engineers must be prepared to work effectively in teams, consider problems in context, make evidence-based decisions, and persist and learn from failure. Laboratory work provides an important tool for professional formation, allowing university engineering students to develop these skills. Successful laboratory task designs should provide rich opportunities to develop these skills but also must fit into the constraints of the educational setting. This study will investigate the ways that a virtual (simulation-based) and physical (hands-on) laboratory based on the same realistic engineering process prepares students for the profession. In particular, we will investigate if the virtual and physical laboratory modes develop different but complementary skills. The knowledge gained will better position engineering educators to design and employ virtual and physical laboratories, including cases where students are place-bound and may not have access to physical equipment. While this study will focus on a process specific to environmental engineering, the knowledge gained has the potential to broadly impact teaching and learning practices across all engineering and science disciplines that rely on laboratory investigation in the curriculum. The knowledge gained will also contribute to increased access to STEM disciplines by supporting on-line courses and degree programs. Finally, we will develop increased capacity in engineering education research through the intentional mentoring of one university faculty member and the training and development of two graduate students. Through a microgenetic analysis of the activity of four student teams engaging in both the virtual and physical versions of the same laboratory, we will develop transferrable knowledge of how laboratory mode and instructional design influence students’ participation in epistemic practices. Epistemic practices are the socially organized and interactionally accomplished ways that members of a group propose, communicate, justify, assess, and legitimize knowledge claims. Specifically, in this PFE:RIEF project, research and mentoring activity will be organized around the investigation of a laboratory in the environmental engineering discipline – the Jar Test Laboratory for Water Treatment. Jar testing is a laboratory procedure commonly used by design engineers and drinking water treatment plant operators to optimize physical and chemical conditions for the effective coagulation, flocculation and settling of particulate contaminants from water. The central hypothesis of this work is that physical laboratories foreground social and material epistemic practices while virtual laboratories foreground social and conceptual epistemic practices. We will employ three primary data sources: (1) video records and researcher observation of the teams as they complete the laboratory; (2) semi-structured stimulated recall interviews of the students and laboratory instructors; and, (3) student work products. We will use discourse analysis from the student recordings and coding of the stimulated recall interviews to answer the following research questions: (1) In what ways and to what extent does conducting an experiment in a physical mode to develop a process recommendation influence students’ engineering epistemic practices? (2) In what ways and to what extent does conducting an experiment in a virtual mode to develop a process recommendation influence students’ engineering epistemic practices? (3) How do students in each laboratory mode respond to being “stuck”? Do students’ views on the iterative nature of science/engineering and their tolerance for mistakes depend on the instructional design afforded by the laboratory mode?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.