Designing and Teaching Engineering Laboratory Courses

One of the desired learning outcomes of an engineering laboratory course is that the student should be able to:

• Design experiments
• Conduct (or simulate) experiments
• Report experimental results in the form of suitable tables, graphs, etc.
• Analyse experimental results
• Interpret experimental results
• Develop a mathematical model or computer simulation to correlate or interpret experimental results
• Give reasoning/explanation of experimental results
• List and discuss possible reasons for any deviation from predicted/expected and the actual/measured results
• Select the most likely reason for any deviation from the prediction/expectation
• Justify the selected reason for any deviation of the results
• Formulate a method to validate the selected reason/explanation

It is not advisable to give students pre-designed experiments in an engineering laboratory course. This way they will not develop the ability to design the experiments themselves. Rather than assigning them a large number of pre-designed experiments, it is better to assign them a fewer number of problems that require experimentation for solution. Let the students design experiments themselves in order to find solution to the assigned problem through experimentation. However, it is the duty of the teacher to provide students instruction and resources in areas such as:

• Experimental design
• Statistical analysis
• Instrument calibration
• Estimation of error
• Equipment operation, etc.

The teacher should also prescribe a lab report format that includes sections on:

• Problem statement
• Material and equipment
• Experimental design
• Experimental procedure
• Results and discussion
• References

For engineering laboratory courses, it is good to form student teams comprising four members each with one of the following roles:

• Experimental Designer: who determines number of experimental runs to be carried out to solve the assigned problem, the conditions of each run, data to be collected in each run, and the required data analysis
• Operations Supervisor and Safety Monitor: who coordinates conduct of the experiment including instrument calibration, necessary precautions, operation and data recording
• Data Analyst/Statistician: who coordinates (statistical) analysis of the data collected in the experiment including estimation of error
• Theorist: who coordinates interpretation of the results in the light of the existing theories, reasoning/explanation, development of mathematical model and simulation to correlate or interpret results

The above given roles of the student team members should rotate from one lab experiment to the next.

References:

[1] “Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs”, http://www.abet.org accessed on 18-01-09

[2] R. M. Felder and R. Brent, “Designing and Teaching Courses to Satisfy the ABET Engineering Criteria”, Journal of Engineering Education, 92 (1), 7-25 (2003)

[3] M. J. Myers and A. B. Burgess, “Inquiry-Based Laboratory Course Improves Students’ Ability to Design Experiments and Interpret Data”, Advances in Physiology Education 27: 26-33, 2003