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Multiple studies call for engineering education to integrate social justice into classroom instruction. Yet, there is uncertainty regarding whether integrating these social topics into engineering curriculum will support or detract from the learning of technical concepts. This study focuses on evaluating how reframing technical assessments to include social justice concepts impacts student learning and investigates how well students integrate social justice into engineering decision making. Using a within-subject design, in which students were exposed to both conditions (questions with and without social justice context), we evaluate how social justice framing impacts overall student learning of technical topics. Social justice prompts are added to homework questions, and we assess students’ demonstration of knowledge of original technical content of the course, as well as their ability to consider social justice implications of engineering design. In the earlier homework assignment, the experimental group showed a significant decrease in learning when technical concepts were framed to include social justice. As the students became more familiar with social justice considerations, their learning of technical concepts became comparable to that of students who did not have the social justice components in their assignment. Their evaluation of the social implications of technical decisions also improved. History: This paper has been accepted for the INFORMS Transactions on Education Special Issue on DEI in ORMS Classrooms. Funding: This work was supported by the Carnegie Mellon University’s Wimmer Faculty Fellowship and the National Science Foundation [Grant 2053856]. D. Nock also acknowledges support from the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, where she is an energy fellow. 

Abstract Field‐based experiences enhance cognitive and affective skill sets of undergraduate students. Although field‐based learning is a highly effective pedagogical modality, it is not accessible to all students, necessitating the development and evaluation of alternate modalities that convey equivalent benefits. Virtual reality (VR) may allow students to engage in experiences without requiring them to be physically present within a field environment. Although VR is gaining popularity, there are limited examples of using it to simulate field experiences and of its efficacy in influencing student learning gains and attitudes toward environmental content. Therefore, we created immersive 360° cinematic VR (CVR) experiences focused on coastal marine ecosystems and compared them to traditional modalities: a field course and 2D videos focused on the same content. Students (n = 86) across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non‐STEM majors from three institutions—Bentley University, Florida International University, and Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium—were given a preassessment/postassessment to understand learning gains and attitude changes related to each modality. Although significant learning gains happened across all modalities, CVR students experienced the greatest learning gains, though postscores were correlated with prescores and CVR students had lower prescores than field course students. There were no cross‐institutional or major‐related differences in learning gains for field course students. Students across all modalities experienced shifts in attitudes, with consistent increases in the use of keywords related to coastal marine ecosystems in postassessments. Ultimately, CVR is an effective supplement or alternative for undergraduate students who cannot access in‐person field‐based experiences and may be particularly impactful for non‐STEM majors.