2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Prioritizing learning objectives for chemical engineering laboratory courses

Presented at Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies Division (DELOS) Technical Session 5: Lab Design

Chemical engineering laboratory courses are traditionally taught in the third and/or fourth year and expose students to the type of equipment they may see in industrial positions. To work towards alignment of laboratory courses with industrial needs, a better understanding of the learning outcomes currently addressed in laboratory courses and the gaps in the current curriculum need to be identified. Three surveys were designed based on thirteen previously proposed general learning outcomes of engineering laboratory courses [1]. These surveys were developed and distributed to faculty members, students, and industrial engineers in order to gain an understanding of the outcomes important to the various stakeholders and the current success of chemical engineering laboratory curricula in addressing those outcomes[2]. These results provide information to prioritize the learning outcomes and aid the redesign of laboratory courses to better align with the skills and attributes desired by employers.

This paper describes the chemical engineering faculty survey results. Faculty members understand what is currently taught and can directly influence changes to the curricula in their departments. In addition to demographic and background information, respondents were asked to identify the most important learning outcomes for chemical engineering laboratory courses (of the thirteen outcomes previously identified by Feisel and Rosa). Open-ended questions were included to identify additional important learning outcomes and provide comments. The survey was distributed via snowball sampling, with initial distribution at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ annual meeting in 2022 and via social media. Faculty response data was analyzed to identify trends in the ranking of outcomes and weaknesses in students and curricula, as perceived by faculty members. Across all faculty responses, there was agreement on the high level of importance of four learning outcomes: design experiment, compare to theory, analyze data, and communication. While the learning outcome of ethics was rated as significantly important for a laboratory course, many faculty did not include this in their ranking of top five learning outcomes or their open ended response of important learning outcomes for a laboratory course. Moving forward, these results will be combined with results from the student and industry surveys to suggest which outcomes should be prioritized in chemical engineering laboratory courses and inform future work in other engineering disciplines.

Authors

Dr. Sarah A. Wilson University of Kentucky [biography]

Sarah Wilson is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Kentucky. She completed her bachelor's degree at Rowan University in New Jersey before attending graduate school for her PhD at the University of Massachusetts.
Prof. Samira Azarin Azarin [biography]

Samira Azarin is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. She earned her B.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 and went on to receive a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011.
Dr. Chris Barr http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2938-2896 University of Michigan [biography]

Dr. Christopher Barr is the Instructional Laboratory Supervisor in the Chemical Engineering Department at University of Michigan. He obtained his Ph.D. at University of Toledo in 2013 and is a former Fellow in the N.S.F. GK-12 grant "Graduate Teaching Fellows in STEM High School Education: An Environmental Science Learning Community at the Land-Lake Ecosystem Interface". His main responsibilities are supervising and implementing improvements to the undergraduate labs. He also serves as secondary instructor for the CHE labs, the Departmental Safety Coordinator, and lead for the SAFEChE (Process Safety Across the CHE Curriculum) modules as well as the Visual Encyclopedia of Chemical Engineering Equipment. Currently, he serves as a Director for the ASEE ChE Division.
Dr. Joanne Kay Beckwith http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1505-6894 Carnegie Mellon University [biography]

Joanne K. Beckwith Maddock is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Janie Brennan Washington University in St. Louis [biography]

Janie is a Senior Lecturer in Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Her PhD is in chemical engineering from Purdue University. Research focus areas include laboratory courses, process safety, and chemical engineering pedagogy.
Prof. Tracy L. Carter http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4184-0052 Northeastern University [biography]

Tracy Carter is part-time faculty in the Chemical Engineering department at Northeastern University and is a CCPS faculty facilitator for Chemical Process Safety. She earned PhD in 2018 and the M.S. degree in 1998 and the B.S. degree in 1993 from Northeastern University.
Amy J. Karlsson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9962-925X University of Maryland [biography]

Amy J. Karlsson is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland - College Park. She received her BS in chemical engineering from Iowa State University and her PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

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