This work-in-progress research paper aims to present a protocol for a systematic review focused on recent engineering education research on collaborative learning in virtual reality (VR) platforms. Despite the growing application of collaborative VR in engineering education, research on systematic instructional methods within these environments remains limited. This work-in-progress paper details a protocol for a systematic review that aims to fill this gap by evaluating the use of collaborative VR in engineering education. We outline the methods, including search strategies and criteria for inclusion, based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework. The review will focus on identifying the skills and competencies targeted by collaborative VR applications, the theoretical underpinnings employed, and the learning outcomes achieved. This systematic approach will provide a comprehensive synthesis of existing literature, offer insights into effective practices, and guide future research and instructional strategies in engineering education using VR technologies. Through this protocol, we aim to contribute to the development of evidence-based guidelines that can enhance the efficacy of collaborative VR learning environments for engineering students.

Concept inventories are diagnostic instruments designed to assess student understanding and identify common misconceptions in a specific domain or discipline. They consist of multiple-choice questions or tasks that target key concepts and principles in the subject matter. The ECCD was developed to diagnose student misconceptions of electric concepts like power, energy, and potential difference. For concept inventories to be effective in measuring misconceptions, the items on the test must possess two essential qualities: validity and reliability. We administered the ECCD to 270 undergraduate engineering students in the summer and fall of 2023 and the test items are examined using the classical test theory framework. Results from the analysis show that most of the items on the test perform well in terms of item difficulty, item discrimination, and reliability. Findings from this work-in-progress analysis pointed to a few items that might need revision or be discarded on the final test. The implication of these findings is also reported.

This research paper presents our findings from a mixed-method study investigating students' experiences in virtual reality (VR) laboratories that influence satisfaction levels toward increased learning engagement and outcomes. There has been increasing adoption of VR laboratories within higher education institutions to foster conceptual understanding and representation of abstract concepts. In ensuring their successful implementation for improved learning experiences, predictors and success factors for learners', satisfaction levels have been investigated. The underlying experiences of students in VR laboratories that influence satisfaction levels have been overlooked in most literature on student satisfaction. Although predictive models inform us as to factors that could impact satisfaction, they fall short in capturing the subjective experiences of learners in navigating virtual environments. These experiences offer useful insight into strategies for supporting learners during the implementation of VR laboratories for increased satisfaction levels. The purpose of our study is to investigate learners' experiences in multiple VR laboratories with regard to satisfaction. We implemented a series of VR laboratories into an undergraduate curriculum to offer learners a holistic learning experience. We adopt a mixed-method research design approach. The administered survey included a validated satisfaction survey and additional open-ended questions on the experience and satisfaction. We use results from the openended questions to interpret quantitative survey ratings. Our study provides insights into students' unique satisfaction experiences in virtual learning environments. Understanding these experiences could inform instructors on important strategies for supporting students during the implementation of VR laboratories. This could further ensure improved student engagement, learning satisfaction, and enhanced learning outcomes.

This work-in-progress innovative practice paper presents research that follows up on a recent paper on faculty perspectives regarding the transition to exclusively online laboratory classes in electrical and computer engineering, which was presented at a conference in 2022. As we gradually moved away from the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty phased back to using in-person labs instead of the online (remote and virtual) laboratories that they had transitioned to in 2020. The data presented in this paper comes from two separate sets of interviews, each lasting 30 to 45 minutes, with five interviews conducted in each set. These interviews were recorded within two years of each other. Similar to the previous paper, we once again apply the diffusion of innovation and the framework of propagation to identify effectiveness and fit as key factors in the successful adoption of innovation. The online labs utilized in this study include the VISIR remote lab, the EMONA remote lab, and the MULTISIM online circuit simulator. The objective of this paper is to explore any mindset changes that faculty members have experienced regarding the adoption of these online laboratories in their classrooms. This paper allows us to gain deeper insight into important aspects related to the integration of online laboratories into our classrooms. Common themes from the first set of five interviews include constant comparison to “real” labs, time flexibility and individualized support, differences in learning outcomes, the necessary connection between lecture and lab, and student engagement with the lab. Preliminary results from the follow-up set of interviews show a similar set of results but with a stronger emphasis on the comfort found in using online labs after a year of use. There is a significant push to use the remote labs in conjunction with the in-person labs or even as a pre-lab. Through this work, we aim to develop an evidence-based understanding using an inductive approach to the data.

This work-in-progress research paper investigates students' cognitive engagement in collaborative virtual reality (VR) statics activities. The use of VR in engineering education is increasing with the advance in technology. To maximize the affordance of the VR for engineering education, it is important to understand how active learning enfolds in the VR environment since the level of student engagement during active learning is a vital indicator for the effectiveness of the learning environment. Using content analysis, this study investigates the modes of cognitive engagement of students working collaboratively to solve engineering problems in a VR learning environment. The video-recorded collaboration and the transcribed verbal interaction of the students in the VR learning environment were analyzed based on the Interactive-Constructive-Active-Passive (ICAP) framework. The analysis coded the patterns of the observed cognitive engagement based on the video recording and transcripts of the groups' conversation at each phase of the task. The analysis revealed that the active and constructive modes dominated the students' conversation while the interactive mode was the least observed mode of cognitive engagement during the task. The implications of the findings for further research and practice are discussed.

Students' misconceptions of electric circuits are common and are well documented in the literature. Misconceptions are students' conceptions that are against the accepted scientifically correct explanations, however, held tenaciously. Research has shown that misconceptions act as barriers to learning science and engineering concepts. In order to remediate students' misconceptions, there is a need for their accurate detection and measurement. While there have been concept inventories developed to measure students' misconceptions in electric circuits, most of them lack the ability to discriminate between students who lack prior knowledge and those who have ingrained misconceptions. Hence, the need for the development of the Electric Circuits Concept Diagnostic (ECCD). In this study, 30 items designed to test students' conceptual understanding of basic electric circuit concepts (such as Voltmeter and Ammeter, Nodes and Loops, Sequential Reasoning, Voltage and Potential Difference etc.) were administered to participants via Qualtrics Survey Software. The test has three tiers: multiple-choice content tier (O), open-ended reason tier (C), and multiple-choice confidence level tier(H). Data from 35 engineering undergraduate students who took part in the pilot test were analyzed, and the initial analysis and results of the data generated during the summer of 2022 show students' clusters based on their responses to the items on ECCD. This work-in-progress reports these results and outlines the next phase of the project.

Academic belonging is an important construct essential for student success in engineering. It involves a sense of connectedness, acceptance, and identification within the learners' academic environment. Students may disengage and ultimately drop out of their program of study where the sense of academic belonging is lacking. This work in progress bridges the gap by examining the correlates of academic belonging in order to understand the processes by which graduate engineering students develop a sense of belonging within their chosen programs. 227 graduate students from six universities in the United States completed the Postsecondary Student Engagement (PosSE) survey. Using Pearson Correlation, we evaluated the relationships between major valuing, achievement striving, major satisfaction, peer interaction, positive faculty relations, passion, perseverance, and academic belonging. The results show that major satisfaction has a positive strong relationship with academic belonging, while major valuing and positive faculty relations have a significant positive medium relationship with academic belonging. It was noted that achievement striving, and peer interaction has small positive but significant relationships with academic belonging. The theoretical and practical implications of this study will be discussed.

Many students have misconceptions about fundamental engineering concepts that interfere with their ability to accurately grasp more advanced engineering concepts. Misconceptions are particularly ubiquitous in counterintuitive and complex subjects, such as electric circuits. Although several efforts have been directed at diagnosing students' misconceptions of electric circuits and designing instructional approaches for remediating identified misconceptions, there has been no effort to systematically synthesize and summarized the literature on students' misconceptions of electricity and electric circuit concepts. As such, the purpose of this study, which is a work in progress, is to conduct a systematic literature review of empirical studies that have examined students' misconceptions about electric circuits and electricity concepts. A comprehensive literature search returned 3365 articles, out of which 93 passed the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We randomly selected 17 of the included articles for this work in progress study. The results of the analysis of the coding show that most of the studies were published between 2011 and 2021, and that about 47% of them focused on college students. Furthermore, the result reveals that most students still believe that battery is a source of constant current. Other results and the implications for this study's findings will be discussed.

This work-in-progress research paper investigates the role of virtual reality (VR) in engineering education lab courses. While there are ongoing debates about the feasibility and practicality of deploying VR on a large scale for engineering instruction, there has been growing evidence in support of the efficacy of VR to promote certain types of engineering instruction[1]. Most importantly, it is essential that we understand students’ social interactions in VR-based learning environments. This work-in-progress explores patterns of social presence indicators during a collaborative desktop virtual reality (VR) Land surveying task. Participants were asked to think-aloud and video record their interactions and conversations while completing learning tasks using a desktop VR environment. The desktop program was a computer program that simulates land surveying. The qualitative data analysis was based on the framework of social presence by Rourke et al. [2]. The study reported on indicators, frequencies and patterns or themes of social presence observed during student’s interactions with one another in the learning environment. This study also highlighted potential implications of this observation for future research on students’ social experiences in VR-based engineering education.

This research work-in-progress paper investigates faculty perspectives on the switch to online experimentation modalities in the context of our Fundamentals of Circuit Analysis course that includes online laboratory modules. While online (remote and virtual) laboratories have long been considered promising supplemental educational tools, the risks and challenges associated with delivering online labs have limited the willingness of faculty to adopt these methods. However, the development of knowledge, methodologies, and success factors for effective online laboratory instruction is a critical and timely need. With this work, we develop an evidence-based understanding of the transition from hands-on to online experimentation and its associated challenges for faculty. We furthermore generate fundamental knowledge about online experimentation adoption in engineering programs, which includes the full spectrum of faculty participants (early, later, and "never" adopters). Preliminary results show that the most important aspects for faculty in the context with switching to online labs are scheduling flexibility and individualized support, learning outcome differences, a connection between lecture and the lab, and student engagement.

This work in progress investigates the role of self-efficacy in mediating the effect of mastery and performance goals on student achievement. The role of achievement goals on academic achievement has received considerable empirical support. However, the mediating role of self-efficacy belief has not been explored within the engineering context. One hundred and seventy-one undergraduate students in the college of engineering in a public university in the United States completed questionnaires that assessed their goal orientations, and self-efficacy belief for learning and performance. The result of the structural equation modeling conducted in MPLUS shows a good fit: Chi-square = 206.76(df=95), TLI=.90, CFI=.92, RMSEA=.08, SRMR=0.06. Both performance and mastery goals significantly predicted self-efficacy for learning, and performance goal is both direct and indirect predictor of performance score through self-efficacy. The theoretical, practical implications and future direction of this study are discussed.

This research full paper examines the relationship between achievement goal orientations, task value, self-efficacy for learning, and students' achievement. Participants were 171 undergraduate students from the college of engineering. The students completed measures that assessed achievement goal orientations, self-efficacy for learning performance, and task value. The results show that while mastery, performance approach, self-efficacy, and task value correlate significantly with the students' achievement, only self-efficacy for learning performance significantly predicts students' achievement when combined with prior knowledge and absence in a complete hierarchical regression model. The findings highlight the impact of objective measures (class attendance) on student achievement scores relative to their task or self-efficacy beliefs, and achievement goal orientations.

This work in progress (WIP) uses a mixed methods approach to consider how student satisfaction and performance affect academic resilience. A previous study introduced a sink, struggle, and soar model to quantitatively assess positive adaptation after a poor exam performance. An underlying assumption was that quantitative measures of performance would align with a student's perception that they need to bounce back. However, some students who performed well by external standards still exhibited a strong desire to positively adapt, while other students who performed relatively poorly appeared unmotivated to adapt. In both scenarios, there appeared to be a mismatch between external measures of performance and internal perceptions. As part of an ongoing study of resilience, in this WIP we qualitatively and quantitatively examine student satisfaction with their performance. Preliminary data suggest that students with lower satisfaction than performance tend to focus on factors within their control when evaluating their performance. By contrast students with higher satisfaction than performance tend to attribute their low performance to external factors outside their control. As we continue to explore academic resilience, we hope that considering student satisfaction will provide insights into how to understand and help subpopulations in the classroom.

This Innovative Practice Work-In-Progress paper describes an ongoing effort to develop a remote laboratory version of the “Diffusion in Liquid” experiment. Providing undergraduate students with a seamless practical experience in the laboratory is often challenging for reasons ranging from limited equipment to the geographical constraints imposed on lab time scheduling. Unlike the traditional lab that requires a physical space, technological advances make it possible to develop lab modules that can be accessed remotely, and without the same time constraints as traditional laboratories. Laboratory modules that are accessible remotely could make the lab experience available to students even when physical equipments are unavailable - cutting down on scheduling bottlenecks or downtime. The project reported in this study describes an on-going effort to develop a remote laboratory replica of the “Diffusion in Liquid” experiment. This report describes preliminary developmental efforts and the educational research plan proposed in evaluating the equivalence of students' learning in the remote laboratory environment compared to traditional laboratory.