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

合作研究：研究启动：虚拟和物理实验室的补充功能，用于开发工程认知实践

• 批准号: 2204885
• 负责人: Milo Koretsky
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: Tufts University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2204885&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Initiation; Complementary; affordances

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.

除了能够胜任地进行工程计算之外，专业工程师还必须准备好在团队中有效工作，考虑具体情况，做出基于证据的决策，并坚持并从失败中学习，实验室工作为专业形成提供了重要工具。允许大学工程学生发展这些技能。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。这项研究将研究虚拟（基于模拟）和物理（基于相同现实工程流程的实践）实验室特别是，我们将调查虚拟和物理实验室模式是否可以培养不同但互补的技能，从而更好地帮助工程教育者设计和使用虚拟和物理实验室，包括学生受地点限制的情况。虽然这项研究将重点关注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研究的所有工程和科学学科的教学实践。获得的知识也将有助于增加接触 STEM 学科的机会最后，我们将通过对一名大学教员的有意指导以及对两名研究生的培训和发展，通过对四名学生的活动进行微观遗传分析，来提高工程教育研究的能力。团队参与同一实验室的虚拟和物理版本，我们将转移可开发的知识，即实验室模式和教学设计如何影响学生参与认知实践。认知实践是小组成员提出的社会组织和互动完成的方式。 、沟通、论证、评估和具体来说，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进行组织——水处理罐测试实验室是设计中常用的实验室程序。工程师和饮用水处理厂操作员优化物理和化学条件，以实现水中颗粒污染物的有效凝结、絮凝和沉降。这项工作的中心假设是，物理实验室在虚拟的情况下突出了社会和物质认知实践。实验室将采用三个主要数据源：（1）团队完成实验室时的视频记录和研究人员观察；（2）对学生和实验室讲师的半结构化刺激回忆访谈；以及，（3）学生工作产品，我们将使用学生录音和刺激回忆访谈编码的话语分析来回答以下研究问题：（1）以什么方式以及在何种程度上进行物理模式的实验。制定一个过程推荐影响学生(2) 在虚拟模式下进行实验以制定流程建议会以何种方式以及在多大程度上影响学生的工程认知实践？ (3) 每种实验室模式下的学生如何应对“卡住”？对科学/工程迭代性质的看法及其对错误的容忍度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，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持标准。