Experimenting with engagement: An intervention to promote active reflection during laboratory practicals

Laboratory experiments form an integral part of engineering education, providing a space in which students are given the opportunity to link theoretical concepts to real-world applications. However, students are often unable to engage in the experiments in a meaningful way as the underlying physical principles are not directly measurable but must be inferred through data analysis, even more so in the context of chemical engineering compared to the other engineering disciplines. In this work, Legitimation Code Theory was applied to investigate student learning in a typical chemical engineering laboratory module, both on the time-scale of individual experiments (analyzed in terms of the semantic plane) as well as over the course of the entire semester (analyzed in terms of the epistemic plane). The laboratory experiment as a translation device was considered and an intervention was proposed to enhance the efficacy thereof by providing laptops to facilitate instant data processing. The structure of the module provided a unique opportunity to effectively assess the impact of the intervention without unduly disadvantaging any participants. Quantitative empirical results confirmed that the intervention improved the learning opportunity provided by the laboratory experiment by ensuring that the underlying concepts become self-evident. Furthermore, it was established that students engaged more effectively with experiments when the underlying theory (ontic relations) are emphasized above the experimental approach (discursive relations).