Advancing Understanding of Student Learning in Virtual Undergraduate Engineering Laboratories

This project aims to serve the national interest in undergraduate STEM education by investigating the learning and experiences of undergraduate students in virtual mechanical and aerospace engineering laboratories. The COVID-19 pandemic has ignited multiple crises in student lives, including sudden changes in living situations, decrease in study hours, lower academic performance, lost internships/jobs, and lowered income expectation. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic places new emphasis on the potential benefits of remote learning arrangements including online virtual labs in engineering. However, although these virtual engineering labs may be intended to increase student access to learning, these labs may also perpetuate climates and cultures of inequality. The project will investigate the design of a virtual lab framework intended to promote equity and inclusion for all students, in particular those who are underrepresented in engineering. The project team will examine how students engage with, learn from, and adapt to new virtual lab tools and how these tools affect students' motivation to learn and their self-identification with engineering.

The project focuses on three aims: (i) the design of a validated educational instrument for assessment of learning in virtual labs; (ii) the investigation of online-learning technologies and the conditions that lead to improved teaching and learning; and (iii) faculty professional development. The research component of the project will examine how the language, gender, race, and class of people appearing in a virtual lab affect the level of student comfort and participation in virtual lab activities in senior capstone labs. The research design includes a sequential exploratory mixed method approach, undergirded by appropriate theoretical models (Technology Acceptance Model and Inputs-Environment-Outcome Conceptual Model). It is expected that results of this work will inform virtual lab designers about environmental inputs that resonate across genders and diverse student populations. Findings will be disseminated via publications, presentations, and learning modules to engineering, engineering education, and educational research audiences. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.

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.