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之外，专业工程师还必须准备好在团队中有效地工作，在上下文中考虑问题，做出基于证据的决策，坚持并从失败中学习。实验室工作为专业形成提供了重要的工具，使大学工程专业的学生能够发展这些技能。成功的实验任务设计应该为培养这些技能提供丰富的机会，但也必须适应教育环境的限制。本研究将探讨基于相同现实工程过程的虚拟（基于模拟）和物理（动手）实验室为学生准备专业的方式。特别是，我们将调查虚拟和物理实验室模式是否发展不同但互补的技能。所获得的知识将使工程教育工作者更好地设计和使用虚拟和物理实验室，包括学生受地点限制和可能无法使用物理设备的情况。虽然本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课程中依赖实验室调查的所有工程和科学学科的教学和学习实践。通过支持在线课程和学位课程，所获得的知识也将有助于增加对STEM学科的访问。最后，我们将透过一名大学教师的指导和两名研究生的训练和发展，来提高工程教育研究的能力。通过对四个学生团队在同一实验室的虚拟和物理版本中进行活动的微观遗传学分析，我们将开发关于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。认知实践是群体成员提出、交流、证明、评估和合法化知识主张的社会组织和互动完成的方式。具体来说，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进行调查。罐子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，以有效地混凝、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认识实践，而虚拟实验室前景社会和概念认识实践。我们将采用三个主要数据来源：(1)视频记录和研究人员在团队完成实验室时的观察；(2)学生和实验室教师的半结构化刺激回忆访谈；(3)学生作业成果。我们将使用来自学生录音的话语分析和刺激回忆访谈的编码来回答以下研究问题：(1)在物理模式下进行实验以开发过程建议以何种方式和程度影响学生的工程认知实践？(2)在虚拟模式下进行实验以制定过程建议以何种方式和程度影响学生的工程认知实践？(3)每种实验模式下的学生如何应对“被卡住”？学生对科学/工程迭代本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。

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.