Laboratory experimentation is a key component of the development of professional engineers. However, experiments conducted in chemical engineering laboratory classes are commonly more prescriptive than the problems faced by practicing engineers, who have agency to make consequential decisions across the experiment and communication of results. Thus, understanding how experiments in laboratory courses vary in offering students opportunities to make such decisions, and how students navigate higher agency learning experiences is important for preparing graduates ready to direct these practices. In this study, we sought to answer the following research questions: How do students perceive their agency in course-based undergraduate research experiences? What factors are measured by the Consequential Agency in Laboratory Experiments survey? To better understand student perceptions of their agency in relation to laboratory experiments, we first conducted a case study of a course-based research experience (CURE) in a senior-level chemical engineering laboratory course. We then surveyed six upper-division laboratory courses across two universities using an initial version of the Consequential Agency in Laboratory Experiments survey. We used exploratory factor analysis to investigate the validity of the data from the survey for measuring relevant constructs of authenticity, agency in specific domains, responsibility, and opportunity to make decisions. We found that with instructional support, students in the CURE recognized that failure could itself provide opportunities for learning. They valued having the agency to make consequential decisions, even when they also found the experience challenging. We also found strong support for items measuring agency as responsibility, authenticity, agency in the communication domain, agency in the experimental design domain, and opportunity to make decisions. These findings give us insight into the value of higher agency laboratory experiments, and they provide a foundation for developing a more precise survey capable of measuring agency across various laboratory experiment practices. Such a survey will enable future studies that investigate the impacts of increasing agency in just one domain versus in several. In turn, this can aid faculty in developing higher agency learning experiences that are more feasible to implement, compared to CUREs.
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First-year students’ agency related to engineering requirements
A key challenge in engineering design problem framing is defining requirements and metrics. This is difficult, in part, because engineers must make decisions about how to treat qualitative and subjective issues, like stakeholder preferences, about how to prioritize different requirements, and about how to maintain tentativeness and ill-structuredness in the solution space. And this is made more challenging in light of the function of requirements in other types of engineering problems, like feasibility analysis, in which the requirements should converge on a decision. Given these challenges, it is unsurprising that there is limited research on how first-year students approach such work, how they make sense of requirements, and how their conceptualizations of requirements change with instruction. Our purpose in this study is to investigate students’ initial understanding and use of engineering requirements in a specific problem solving context. We developed a survey to measure students’ perceptions related to engineering requirements based on constructs derived from the literature on engineering requirements. We implemented the survey in a first-year and in senior courses for the purpose of validating items using factor analysis. Following this, we conducted analysis of survey and interview data restricted to the first-year course, including epistemic beliefs and analysis of students’ agency. Through exploratory factor analysis, we found that factors did not converge around constructs as described in the literature. Rather, factors formed around the forms of information leveraged to develop requirements. Through qualitative analysis of students’ responses on the survey and to interviews, we evaluated the extent to which students expressed agency over their use of requirements to make decisions within a course project. We describe implications of this exploratory study in terms of adapting research instruments to better understand this topic. Further, we consider pedagogical implications for first year programs and beyond in supporting students to develop ownership over decision making related to engineering requirements.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1751369
- PAR ID:
- 10385867
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exhibition
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-19
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Laboratory experimentation is a key component of the development of professional engineers. However, experiments conducted in chemical engineering laboratory classes are commonly more prescriptive than the problems faced by practicing engineers, who have agency to make consequential decisions across the experiment and communication of results. Thus, understanding how experiments in laboratory courses vary in offering students opportunities to make such decisions, and how students navigate higher agency learning experiences is important for preparing graduates ready to direct these practices. In this study, we sought to answer the following research question: What factors are measured by the Consequential Agency in Laboratory Experiments survey? To better understand student perceptions of their agency in relation to laboratory experiments, developed an initial version of the Consequential Agency in Laboratory Experiments survey, following research-based survey development guidelines. We implemented it in six upper-division laboratory courses across two universities. We used exploratory factor analysis to investigate the validity of the data from the survey for measuring relevant constructs of authenticity, agency in specific domains, responsibility, and opportunity to make decisions. We found strong support for items measuring agency as responsibility, authenticity, agency in the communication domain, agency in the experimental design domain, and opportunity to make decisions. These findings provide a foundation for developing a more precise survey capable of measuring agency across various laboratory experiment practices. Such a survey will enable future studies that investigate the impacts of increasing agency in just one domain versus in several. In turn, this can aid faculty in developing higher agency learning experiences that are more feasible to implement, compared to authentic research experiences.more » « less
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Laboratory experimentation is a key component of the development of professional engineers. However, experiments conducted in chemical engineering laboratory classes are commonly more prescriptive than the problems faced by practicing engineers, who have agency to make consequential decisions across the experiment and communication of results. Thus, understanding how experiments in laboratory courses vary in offering students opportunities to make such decisions, and how students navigate higher agency learning experiences is important for preparing graduates ready to direct these practices. In this study, we sought to answer the following research question: What factors are measured by the Consequential Agency in Laboratory Experiments survey? To better understand student perceptions of their agency in relation to laboratory experiments, developed an initial version of the Consequential Agency in Laboratory Experiments survey, following research-based survey development guidelines. We implemented it in six upper-division laboratory courses across two universities. We used exploratory factor analysis to investigate the validity of the data from the survey for measuring relevant constructs of authenticity, agency in specific domains, responsibility, and opportunity to make decisions. We found strong support for items measuring agency as responsibility, authenticity, agency in the communication domain, agency in the experimental design domain, and opportunity to make decisions. These findings provide a foundation for developing a more precise survey capable of measuring agency across various laboratory experiment practices. Such a survey will enable future studies that investigate the impacts of increasing agency in just one domain versus in several. In turn, this can aid faculty in developing higher agency learning experiences that are more feasible to implement, compared to authentic research experiences.more » « less
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Laboratory experimentation is a key component of the development of professional engineers. However, experiments conducted in chemical engineering laboratory classes are commonly more prescriptive than the problems faced by practicing engineers, who have agency to make consequential decisions across the experiment and communication of results. Thus, understanding how experiments in laboratory courses vary in offering students opportunities to make such decisions, and how students navigate higher agency learning experiences is important for preparing graduates ready to direct these practices. In this study, we sought to answer the following research question: What factors are measured by the Consequential Agency in Laboratory Experiments survey? To better understand student perceptions of their agency in relation to laboratory experiments, developed an initial version of the Consequential Agency in Laboratory Experiments survey, following research-based survey development guidelines. We implemented it in six upper-division laboratory courses across two universities. We used exploratory factor analysis to investigate the validity of the data from the survey for measuring relevant constructs of authenticity, agency in specific domains, responsibility, and opportunity to make decisions. We found strong support for items measuring agency as responsibility, authenticity, agency in the communication domain, agency in the experimental design domain, and opportunity to make decisions. These findings provide a foundation for developing a more precise survey capable of measuring agency across various laboratory experiment practices. Such a survey will enable future studies that investigate the impacts of increasing agency in just one domain versus in several. In turn, this can aid faculty in developing higher agency learning experiences that are more feasible to implement, compared to authentic research experiences.more » « less
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