Baltimore , Maryland
June 25, 2023
June 25, 2023
June 28, 2023
Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies Division (DELOS) Technical Session 5: Lab Design
Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies Division (DELOS)
17
10.18260/1-2--43869
https://peer.asee.org/43869
609
Dr. Dave Kim is Professor and Mechanical Engineering Program Coordinator in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University Vancouver. His teaching and research have been in the areas of engineering materials, fracture mechanics, and manufacturing processes. In particular, he has been very active in pedagogical research in the area of writing pedagogy in engineering laboratory courses. Dr. Kim and his collaborators attracted close to $1M in research grants to study writing transfer of engineering undergraduates. For technical research, he has a long-standing involvement in research concerned with the manufacturing of advanced composite materials (CFRP/titanium stack, GFRP, nanocomposites, etc.) for marine and aerospace applications. His recent research efforts have also included the fatigue behavior of manufactured products, with a focus on fatigue strength improvement of aerospace, automotive, and rail structures. He has been the author or co-author of over 180 peer-reviewed papers in these areas.
John D. Lynch received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Cum Laude, from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City in 1979. From 1979 to 1995 he worked in the high-tech industry in California and Oregon as a computer engineer, including positions at Floati
This paper aims to investigate how engineering lab courses intervene with students in terms of written course materials. The instruments used for the study include Feisel and Rosa’s philosophical-based lab learning objectives and engineering lab report writing outcomes (1 through 9). The participating lab courses include seven engineering lab courses across four institutions. The laboratory courses cover the majority of Feisel and Rosa’s learning objectives for lab assignments. The most typical assignment method is to provide lab report guidelines in individual lab assignments or for the entire lab course; however, some labs offer templates with blanks, so students simply fill those in for lab reports. We mapped lab assignments and assessments with the engineering lab report writing outcomes. Most labs focus on audience expectations, experimentation processes, high-quality tables/graphs, lab data analysis, and organization. After surveying all the lab courses, we conducted a case study to investigate how lab instructors’ lab report assignments affect students’ lab report quality in the two lab courses (EE 221 with n = 12 and CE 212 with n = 12), showing distinct characteristics in their lab assignment and assessment. The student sample average scores from EE221, which did not provide any guidelines but required fill-in-the-blanks type lab reports, range from 1.6 (outcome 6) to 1.8 (outcome 9). Note that none of the outcomes reach a satisfactory level. In contrast, CE 212 provided the instructor’s expectations for the labs and lab reports explicitly through handouts and guidelines. CE 212 student samples show that most outcomes reach the satisfactory level or 2 out of 3. It is concluded that engineering lab courses offered a variety of materials with a wide range of lab objectives and outcomes. Those materials could impact the students’ lab report writing extensively.
Kim, D., & Lynch, J. D., & Taran, A., & Yurov, A., & Sandry, R. (2023, June), Investigating Engineering Laboratory Course Assignments and Assessments across Four Institutions and a Case Study on Their Impact on Students’ Lab Report Writing Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43869
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