2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering is a discipline dedicated to designing, developing, and optimizing
production systems and relies heavily on laboratory experience. Laboratories play a
pivotal role in facilitating coherent learning outcomes from theoretical knowledge and
are particularly crucial in enabling engineering students to acquire empirical data for
designing and developing products while evaluating their performance on hands-on,
remote, and virtual laboratories are three distinct types used in engineering majors,
each with advantages and disadvantages. Notably, remote and virtual laboratories
have gained prominence in universities worldwide, especially in light of the COVID-
19 pandemic. Remote laboratories have emerged as a primary mode of laboratory
learning for engineering students, and remote laboratories are poised to remain a
central trend in the future, even as the pandemic abates. The findings highlighted the
reasons underlying students' attitudes. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed
using thematic and content analysis methods. The thematic analysis identified eight
five main themes: (1) expectations and academic growth; (2) communication skills;
(3) challenges in hands-on learning; (4) virtual learning experience; (5) personal
growth and workplace readiness. Students' attitudes towards the three types of
laboratories were varied. Hands-on laboratories were favored for essential practical
experiences, while remote and virtual laboratories were perceived as efficient and
convenient options. In conclusion, personal experiences, gender differences in lab
preferences and experience, technological comfort, and individual learning styles all
influence these attitudes, and the findings of this study have implications for
improving engineering education and future laboratory development.