In this Work-in-Progress Research Paper, we explore students' emotions and motivations in a game-based learning (GBL) environment. GBL has been shown to be effective in improving students' cognitive and non-cognitive learning outcomes, including emotions and motivations. In this study, we focus on the Cone Penetration Testing module of GeoExplorer's virtual learning environment, which has been shown to enable civil engineering undergraduates to develop key competencies necessary to problem-solve and make critical on-site decisions. This paper examines the impacts of GeoExplorer on students' emotions and motivations by asking: (1) How, if at all, do students' self-reported emotions shift through experiencing Geo-Explorer, and how does GeoExplorer contribute to these shifts, if at all? and (2) What is the connection between students' self-reported emotions and their self-reported motivational attitudes, both before and after they engage with GeoExplorer? Responses from 60 participants about their emotions and motivations pre-and post-engagement with GeoExplorer were analyzed. Inductive methods, including open coding and the constant comparative approach, were used to analyze the following emotions-based survey item: Thinking about your experience over the past week in the course, what particular emotions and/or thoughts about the course both inside and outside the classroom stand out for you? Deductive analytical practices, including closed coding, were used to analyze the following motivations-based survey item: What factors contributed to your motivation over the past week in the course? Consistent with literature, our preliminary findings indicate an interrelationship between GBL experiences and shifts in students' reported emotions. We also determine a link between these emotional shifts and motivational changes from pre- to post-engagement with GeoExplorer. It is the interplay of these three elements - GBL experience, student emotions, and student motivations - that is at the center of this work.

This Work-in-Progress Research Paper centers on game-based learning and its impact on student motivation as a function of their self-defined demographic factors. Specifically, this work investigates the game-based learning experience of civil engineering undergraduates engaged with the Cone Penetration Testing module of GeoExplorer, a virtual learning environment that simulates in-field learning about the structural properties of soil, providing students with the opportunity to practice competencies and mindsets associated with real-world data collection and analyses. In this paper, we explore the impacts of GeoExplorer on student motivation by addressing the following research questions: (1) How, if at all, do students experience identifiable motivational shifts over the course of their engagement with GeoExplorer? (2) What is the interplay between engagement with GeoExplorer, demographic factors, including students' racial, ethnic, and gender identities, and student motivation? and (3) How can game-based learning environments best address the needs of students with different motivational attitudes? Preliminary analyses of 60 response pairs to the pre- and the post-GeoExplorer engagement surveys from 2021 were analyzed. Deductive analytical practices using ‘a priori’ qualitative coding, based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of motivation, were used to examine the following survey item: What factors contributed to your motivation over the past week in the course? Please give specific examples of activities, interactions, emotions, thoughts, etc. that may have contributed to your motivation. While our early findings indicate distinct differences in students' motivational outcomes between the pre- and post-survey, no clear patterns in motivational shifts are identified across the board, suggesting that the GeoExplorer experience may have impacted each student's motivation uniquely. However, patterns emerged between students' pre-survey motivation types, based on demographic factors. Additionally, unique shifts in motivational attitudes between the pre- and post-surveys were found to occur within each demographic grouping. These findings and challenges in performing this study are further discussed with a proposal for possible future directions.

This Work-in-Progress Research Paper examines the use of contemplative pedagogy for cultivating empathetic and compassionate learning environments in engineering education. Contemplation - often associated with heightened awareness and presence of mind - is comprised of such practices as deep listening, beholding, and meditation, which engage participants in intentional reflection, consideration, and thoughtful observation. Contemplative pedagogy supports participants, individually and collectively, in engaging deeply with themselves and the world by emphasizing empathy, compassion, self-compassion, and creativ-ity. Traditional engineering education engages students predom-inantly in cognitive ways of knowing. In comparison, contem-plative pedagogy creates learning environments that transcend cognition, thereby infusing emotional and embodied knowing into the educational paradigm. Such learning spaces can empower students to access their whole selves in their educational journeys and foster empathy, compassion, self-compassion, and ultimately, belonging to the learning process and learning environment. This paper describes two participants' journeys in one undergraduate physics foundation course delivered at a small, private, non-traditional, engineering college, where students were invited to engage with course content through contemplative pedagogy, including approximately weekly reflective assignments. Each assignment invited students to engage with meditation, curated contemplative activities, and contemplative readings in addition to the technical content. Two of the eighteen students enrolled both consented to participate in the study and engaged with every reflective assignment. Participants' data were analyzed as an instrumental case study using narrative and thematic approaches to allow for emergent phenomena to surface. We find that contemplative pedagogy offers students a scaffolding to reflect on themselves, the world, and the relationship between the two. As well the transformative power of contemplative pedagogy is affected by the participant's focus and orientation toward contemplative practices: one student focused on internal growth and experienced feelings of empowerment through improved connection with themself; another student focused on facilitating growth in others and did not perceive transformational changes.

This Work-in-Progress research paper focuses on the game-based learning environment of GeoExplorer, a digital learning tool that simulates Cone Penetration Testing (CPT) – a field test that civil engineers conduct to understand soil properties. This paper aims to investigate the gendered patterns of student interaction with GeoExplorer, if any, and the associated gendered patterns of content comprehension and self-efficacy related to one's ability to pursue CPT in the field, if any. As such, we ask: (1) How, if at all, does gender affect a student's belief in their ability to apply skills gained through engagement with GeoExplorer in real world environments? and (2) How, if at all, do prior gaming experience and gender impact the GeoExplorer play experience? Four open-ended semi-structured interviews regarding students' experience with gameplay, gender identity, and learning were analyzed. Preliminary analyses used narrative and grounded theory approaches. Our early findings indicate a lack of student insight on the role of their gender identity on their gameplay experience and the presence of a gendered impact of gameplay on student learning and self-efficacy in carrying out CPT in the field.