Euan Lindsay

On the viability of supporting institutional sharing of remote laboratory facilities

Laboratories are generally regarded as critical to engineering education, and yet educational institutions face significant challenges in developing and maintaining high-quality laboratory facilities. Remote laboratories are increasingly being explored as a partial solution to this challenge, with research showing that – for the right learning outcomes – they can be viable adjuncts or alternatives to conventional hands-on laboratories. One consequential opportunity arising from the inherent support for distributed access is the possibility of cross-institutional shared facilities. While both technical feasibility and pedagogic implications of remote laboratories have been well studied within the literature, the organisational and logistical issues associated with shared facilities have received limited consideration. This paper uses an existing national-scale laboratory sharing initiative, along with a related survey and laboratory sharing data, to analyse a range of factors that can affect engagement in laboratory sharing. The paper also discusses the implications for supporting ongoing laboratory sharing.

An alternative approach to student assessment for engineering–laboratory learning

Abstract Assessment of students’ performance in laboratory activities evaluates students’ achievements and weaknesses in practical work. This is vital from both student and institutional perspectives. Practical skills assessment methods evaluate students on three major components: the ability to collect data and perform calculations, to analyse the cause of failures in the process, and finally students’ active engagement and participation in the practical work. A conventional, report-based, assessment method combined with an alternative method, termed in-class assessment, were developed and used for second-year Fluid Mechanics laboratory work. In this article, we describe these two approaches and present the results of a quantitative investigation of students’ responses. Students expressed similar experience and satisfaction levels for each of the assessment methods that measured the attainment of different but essential personal and professional skills stipulated by the professional body for students graduating with an engineering degree. These skills include the development of research skills, conceptual understanding, application of techniques, preparing a report, team working abilities and the communication skills needed to interact with peers and demonstrators effectively. This article shows that the use of in-class assessment can serve as a useful complement to conventional report-based assessment methods ensuring optimal laboratory learning for students across engineering knowledge and skills areas.

Key factors for determining the suitability of converting a fluid-mechanics laboratory to the remote-access mode

Abstract Remote laboratories are a mature technology that are becoming increasingly prevalent in the delivery of undergraduate engineering degree programs. While the literature has moved to the point where the educational value of these laboratories is being evaluated, there is presently no framework provided to help academics determine the suitability of a particular laboratory experiment for conversion to remote-access mode. This paper analyses a second-year fluid-mechanics laboratory to determine its suitability for such a conversion, and then draws from this analysis three key factors that can be used as a preliminary framework for making generalised decisions regarding the suitability of any laboratory class for use in remote mode.

Developing an understanding of undergraduate student interactions in chemistry laboratories

Laboratories play a crucial role in the undergraduate science curriculum and the effectiveness of learning in laboratories is influenced by learners’ interactions with other students, the instructors, and the equipment used. In this study, a pre-lab survey was used to collect information about students’ expectations of interactions in chemistry laboratories and how they can be ranked according to their importance. Post-lab surveys were used to capture students’ perspectives about the frequency of interactions that existed in laboratory sessions they had completed. Direct observations of some laboratories were also conducted principally to validate students’ self-reported interactions. The data were also sorted by three levels of student achievement in order to relate students’ expectations of the importance of different interactions (pre-lab survey) and their self-reported frequency of interactions (post-lab survey) with their laboratory grades. Results from the pre-lab survey showed that student–instructor interactions were anticipated to be the most important ahead of conducting the laboratory activity, whereas results from the post-lab surveys showed that the most frequent interactions occurred between students. Students’ self-reports (post-lab survey) and the direct observations agreed well suggesting that the post-lab survey is a robust tool for capturing the frequencies of student interactions in this and future studies. The results also showed that students gaining high grades both anticipated the importance of, and then engaged more frequently in, two-way communications with both students and instructors whereas students with lower grades placed a relatively higher reliance upon passive interactions such as the pre-lab briefing, the laboratory manual and internet sources. Finally, recommendations are offered to curriculum designers, instructors and students based on the overall findings of the study.