Perceptions of the relative importance of student interactions for the attainment of engineering laboratory-learning outcomes

Abstract

Engineering degree programs include a significant amount of practical work for which national accrediting bodies stipulate a set of laboratory-learning outcomes. This paper sets out to understand how students' interactions in the laboratory contribute to the attainment of laboratory-learning outcomes. The investigation was conducted in the traditional face-to-face laboratory mode. Results from surveys of final-year students and instructors are reported.Students' and instructors' perspectives of the relative importance of four main types of student interaction to meet each of the Engineers Australia laboratory-learning outcomes are also presented. Students primarily expected to interact with instructors more than with students (directly or through observation of interactions) or equipment for their achievement of the learning outcomes, whereas instructors reported that all of the interactions are important to achieve the learning outcomes.

Impact of Online Preparation Modules on Students Engagement and Interactions in Face-to-Face Fluid Mechanics Laboratories

“…The questioning of the function of laboratory components in engineering programs (Feisel & Rosa, 2005) has led to an evolution in the design and assessment of the experimental activities conducted by students to better reflect clear learning outcomes focussing not only on technical skills but also on teamwork, communication, and creativity. Professional bodies, like Engineers Australia, have also driven this transformation with the establishment of explicit graduate competencies (Lal, et al, 2020a) and the promotion of activities related to emergent themes such as safety and sustainability.…”

Fostering Experimental Competences Using Complementary Resources

“…In instructional hands-on laboratories, the learning environment includes: the student themselves, other students, the teacher and/or instructor and the lab equipment (which may include components, computers and manuals). It was clear in literature that three types of interaction occurred: student-student interaction (S-S), student-instructor interaction (S-I), and student-equipment interaction (S-E) (Lal, Lucey, Treagust, & Mocerino, 2018;Lowe, Member, Murray, Lindsay, & Liu, 2009;Shea & Bidjerano, 2013) and more recently another type of interaction was added: indirect-interaction (I-I), referring to students listening or observing and learning to interactions in which they are not direct participants: either other students interactions between themselves or with the teacher (Lal et al, 2019;Wei et al, 2019). In a handson laboratory, where all these elements are present at the same physical space, all of them occur.…”

“…In online laboratories these interactions are not exactly the same: they may be modified or even absent and it is up to the instructor -which role in these online environments is even more important-to consider its social context and promote the adequate support and foment collaboration and interaction (preferably all types), using technology innovations. These include: provide the necessary support documents (considering the equipment and lab tasks) and support during the lab usage, arrange for a common space (using ICT) where students and teachers can interact and communicate and foment collaborative and team work (Lal et al, 2019;Serdyukov & Serdyukova, 2011).…”

“…As already explored in section 2.3, to make the most of these online environments teachers should promote collaborative social environments and support students in their work with timely feedback (Bright et al, 2008;Shea & Bidjerano, 2013). Students' learning is affected by their interaction with the learning environment, including with other students (S-S interaction) (Lal et al, 2019). When the designed VISIR tasks are proposed as group tasks, this S-S interaction is enhanced and this collaborative work, interaction and communication with their colleagues contributes to enhance their perceived learnings (they believe they learn better when they work in groups and discuss the results with their colleagues than when their effort is individual) and their satisfaction with the tool.…”

“…It is up to the teacher to foment collaboration and interaction, not only between the students themselves, but also with the teachers and the lab equipment. In fact, students can learn from all the former type of interactions and also by interactions in which they are not direct participants -indirect-interaction (I-I)-considering students' learning by listening and observing other students' interactions between themselves or with the teacher (Lal et al, 2019(Lal et al, , 2018Lowe et al, 2009;Wei et al, 2019). This cooperation and interaction, particularly the S-S and the I-I interactions, may have implications in VISIR usage-they learn from each other and from what they observe in other students' interactions and do not fell so much the need to use itand also in their VISIR perception.…”