2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The problems engineers solve go beyond simply completing the calculations; they need to be able to work with colleagues, clients, and communities to create solutions that are scientifically viable and socially useful. Additionally, engineers often will face setbacks, needing to learn from multiple iterations of experiments to achieve a suitable solution. In the engineering curriculum, the laboratory can provide an opportunity for students to develop these types of engineering practices. In this project, we investigate how students are developing productive engineering practices within both a simulation-based virtual laboratory and a hands-on physical laboratory. We do this by evaluating the engineering epistemic practices students use and the context of the discourse in which they occur. Engineering epistemic practices refer to the ways engineers develop, communicate, justify, and validate knowledge claims while completing engineering work. Epistemic practices are elicited socially and exist within the context of a given activity and social interaction. To connect student practice to this larger context we also look at the discourse moves student groups make through the lens of practical epistemology analysis.
The Jar Test for Drinking Water Treatment, a laboratory we have developed in both virtual and physical versions, is used in this study. A jar test is a typical environmental engineering procedure to optimize drinking water treatment operations by calibrating the chemical additives needed to facilitate the removal of contaminants through coagulation, flocculation, and sedimentation. The designs of the virtual and physical laboratories were based on the hypothesis that the two laboratory modes would elicit different but productive epistemic practices in students based on the affordances of that mode. The virtual mode is thought to be more suitable for engaging students in social and conceptual epistemic practices, while the physical mode more readily engages students in social and material epistemic practices.
Using a design based research approach, two rounds of data with a total of 21 participants (7 groups of 3 students) have been collected to date. Data in the first round were collected from chemical engineering students (N=12), while the second round data collection was from environmental engineering students who had taken a course in drinking water treatment (N=9). Based on our analysis of the first round, we added a “hybrid” day in between the virtual and physical laboratories for the second round. On this hybrid day students were given an incomplete set of data from a jar test; they needed to analyze these data to choose the dosages of chemical additives to use for their physical laboratory the following week.
Data sources include video recordings of the students completing each laboratory, transcripts of their discourse, submitted written reports, and semi-structured stimulated recall interviews with 18 of the 21 students. A visually enhanced version of the virtual laboratory created in the Unity game engine is currently being developed and will be used to collect a third round of data. The third round of data collection will investigate how a more immersive virtual laboratory will influence student epistemic practices and students’ perceptions of the laboratory experience.
Using discourse analysis methods within sociocultural frameworks, we are addressing the following research questions:
1. What epistemic practices are engaged by a group of engineering students completing an engineering task? How are these practices influenced by:
• Instructional design (e.g.: physical or virtual mode, inclusion of a hybrid day)
• Student exposure to disciplinary content
• A visually enhanced virtual laboratory with a 3D environment
2. How do students use epistemic practices in support of identifying and filling gaps as they complete an engineering laboratory? How is this process influenced by:
• Instructional design (e.g.: physical or virtual mode, inclusion of a hybrid day)
• Student exposure to disciplinary content
• A visually enhanced virtual laboratory with a 3D environment
While this study focuses on a specific laboratory topic within environmental engineering, the research seeks to provide transferable knowledge that can be applied in other STEM disciplines that employ laboratory activities.