Development of a research tool to investigate pedagogical affordances of engineering students’ experimental learning venues (or how to audit the teaching styles supported by your laboratory spaces)

Experimental learning, traditionally conducted in on-campus laboratory venues, is the cornerstone of science and engineering education. The online delivery of engineering coursework endeavours to mimic this with remote and simulated laboratory experimentation. This seed project proposal innovatively applies established techniques in order to investigate the teaching and learning experiences within current face-to-face and remote experimental learning environments. The collected data of participant interactions will be used to establish, and verify, a research tool developed for investigating the pedagogical affordances of laboratory venues, thus enabling the benchmarking of student experiences in existing and proposed cyber environments. This proposal draws on the expertise of staff at Swinburne University of Technology, Curtin University and Queensland University of Technology. Outcome dissemination will be via workshops, newsletters, journal articles and conference papers. The remote laboratory equipment used in the investigation is the result of previous Carrick/ALTC project, and is currently part of The Labshare Institute's inventory.