Using weblabs as a tool to support a culturally diverse student cohort

Abstract

This paper looks at potential issues that may be encountered by engineering departments in the delivery of their curriculum to a more diverse student base resulting from the success of widening participation (WP). This paper outlines a piloted solution to these issues by setting up weblabs: short interactive experiments that can be carried out by the students at any time from anywhere and shows how a system originally developed to allow remote access to real experimental equipment (ReLOAD) can also be used to support the learning needs of a diverse student base. ReLOAD was incorporated into two different courses at University College London (UCL) and The University of Leeds, each with high proportions of WP students; and the use of the tool and feedback from the students was recorded. What can be seen from this research is that, whilst supporting the general student population in a positive way, the tool can also be shown to give specific support for issues encountered by WP students.

Introduction

Over recent years many studies have highlighted a growing need for engineers in the UK (Spinks, 2006; ETB, 2005 and ETB, 2006). However, despite this increasing demand, other studies and data highlight the decline in the number of students taking up engineering degrees in higher education. Various theories have been developed, ranging from the age-old problem of mathematics through to inadequate or inaccurate careers advice (Bowen, 2007).

Many successful recruitment initiatives have been trialled and assessed. These range from summer schools and partnerships with specialist status schools (such as those run by the schools network at Coventry University) through to guest lectures, specialist mathematics classes and retraining of careers staff. Many of these programmes have employed methods and techniques for widening participation to include those groups most under-represented in engineering (i.e. women, adult learners, certain minority ethnic groups and families with no experience of higher education).

Furthermore, in the same way that we have revised how science is promoted and delivered in schools (e.g. Young Engineers, The Smallpeice Trust, The African-Caribbean Network for Science and Technology, The UK Resource Centre for Women in STEM, to name but a few), we must reassess how the higher education engineering curriculum is put together and delivered. With the success of widening participation, future student cohorts will be more culturally diverse. Whilst requiring the same academic content, the delivery, physical surroundings and support of these students needs to be tailored to provide the positive student experience they have not only been promised, but deserve.

One of the key areas of delivery for any engineering degree is the integrated laboratories that provide students with hands-on experience of the theories covered in lectures. It is well documented that these areas of any degree are often the most popular with students and felt to be of great importance in developing the hands-on experience required by employers. Many engineering faculties are restricted financially by the amount of laboratory equipment that can be bought each year; logistically by places to keep and operate the equipment and technically by the availability of technicians to operate and maintain the equipment.

This paper outlines a piloted solution to this problem by setting up weblabs: short interactive experiments that can be carried out by the students at any time from anywhere. The concept of the weblab is not a novel one but, while most of the previous literature appears to concentrate on debates about the technical aspects of weblabs, this paper looks at the use of weblabs as a tool to support a culturally diverse student cohort.

Engineering in the 21st century

Over the last decade the issues surrounding the problems of recruitment to engineering degree programs in HEIs and the recruitment of graduate level engineers by manufacturing and engineering firms have been well documented (Wilson, 2000; Connor, 2001; SEMTA, 2003; Spinks, 2006). Whilst manufacturing and engineering as a sector appear from the outside to be in decline, the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) (Wilson, 2000) predicted a 2% increase in the demand for engineers for the period 1998 – 2009. This amounts to somewhere in the region of 370,000 new jobs, with some predicting a shortfall in engineers in the UK in the region of 100,000 by 2010 (Hodgson, 2004). There are several reasons cited for this potential shortfall of graduate engineers. Less than half of those graduating with an engineering degree will actually take up engineering as a career option (ETB, 2005) and the age profile of the profession is such that many of these positions are replacing existing engineering professionals (SEMTA, 2004). The mathematical standards of students and lack of suitable careers advice (Lea, 2002 and Bowen, 2003) are also causes for concern.

HEIs may not always be successful in recruiting students from all cultural and socio-economic groups within society (The Sutton Trust, 2005). There is a large group of achieving young people who are not taking up the places that they are entitled to at universities, including places in engineering. Also of concern are the low numbers of women (14% of the student base) engaging in engineering and technology subjects, notwithstanding the fact that women are 18% more likely to enter HE than their male peers (HEFCE, 2005).

The National Engineering Programme

Taking all of the above into account, the Royal Academy of Engineering put forward a proposal for the ‘National Engineering Programme’ (NEP) to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in 2005. There were several key points within this proposal that highlighted its difference to many in the past, namely that it is a partnership of many of the key groups who have been providing support and promotion for science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM) subject areas (e.g. Young Engineers, The Smallpeice Trust, the African-Caribbean Network for Science and Technology and the UK Resource Centre for Women in STEM, to name but a few). It is written and designed to build on and support best practice work and to bring active people together, not to develop a new splinter group of activity. The programme aims to both increase and widen participation in engineering HE. It aims to do this initially by working in selected neighbourhoods around the country that have low participation rates in HE using engineering as a vehicle to widen participation, and secondly to increase participation in engineering HE for four target groups currently under-represented in engineering HE: women, minority ethnic students, students from families with no experience of HE and adult learners. The NEP documentation highlighted the need for a pilot programme of activity prior to the national roll-out and this resulted in the development of the ‘London Engineering Project’ (LEP). The LEP has been an 18 month programme of activity based in more than 30 London schools and in three key HEIs (UCL, Sussex and London South Bank). The activity in schools has been designed to raise awareness of engineering and has included initiatives such as e-mentoring, workshops, engineering activities and guest lectures. From the data available to date these initiatives have been successful, with a marked increase in applications to London South Bank’s engineering degrees.

Once initiatives such as the LEP begin to take hold and positively influence the number of students successfully applying to engineering courses, there will be increased cultural diversity among the student population. This diversity, unless anticipated and allowed for, could potentially cause difficulties. Many different factors can contribute to a positive or negative student experience: friends, accommodation, life in the area of the university, course content and delivery, attitude of course peers and attitudes of academics towards students. Academics have little or no control over the vast majority of these issues but the actual academic experience of the students lies in their hands. Recent studies (Spinks, 2006) highlight what is often claimed to be the under-funding of engineering courses and that the course structure and content has seen relatively little change in the last 20 years. With recent widening participation initiatives the student profile has significantly changed and the delivery and presentation of materials needs to reflect this. Through the LEP within UCL, Sussex and London South Bank University several pilots have been developed to deliver the traditional engineering curriculum in a manner that appeals to the broader student base without diluting the academic content and allows academics to take into account their students’ needs, giving them a positive student experience. This paper highlights one of these pilots — weblabs.

Weblabs

The majority of engineering degrees within the UK contains some form of laboratory activity. There are a variety of reasons for this: some claim that ‘hands-on experience is at the heart of science learning’ (Nersessian, 1991), whilst many authors feel that laboratory work allows the science to come alive and has a strong impact on students’ learning outcomes and experience (Clough, 2002 and Magin, 1986). In addition to this there is evidence that suggests that engagement with the practical aspects of engineering is seen in a positive light by potential employers (Faucher, 1985 and Spinks, 2006). Whilst authors have established the obvious benefits, engineering laboratories result in complex issues for HEIs. They are expensive and time consuming both to set up and maintain; if a course has a large number of distance mode students or local part-time students then participating in hands-on classes can be logistically complex; invariably there are health and safety issues that have to be considered and, as cohort sizes increase, there is additional stress placed upon laboratory resources. In addition to this the lifestyle of the traditional full-time student is rapidly changing, with large numbers having to obtain jobs to support themselves whilst at university. Whilst with some degree programmes it is possible for students to balance such commitments, engineering has traditionally been a degree that has a long standing 9am to 5pm attendance need. This too may be a contributing factor to the under-recruitment suffered of late.

Bearing in mind these issues, combined with the rapid advancement of information technology, it is hardly surprising that many academics have looked for technological solutions to the problems. These have manifested themselves in two groups of technology-intensive initiatives: simulation laboratories where technology is used to reproduce the experiments (McAteer, 1996) and remote labs which allow students to physically control the experiments from their personal computers (Aburdene, 1991). It is not the purpose of this paper to debate the pros and cons of these different teaching methods and their effectiveness in the delivery of engineering subject matter, for this the authors refer the reader to the review of Ma (2006), work by researchers such as Lindsay (2002–2007) and the forthcoming report from Barker commissioned by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) Engineering Subject Centre.

What is relevant to this paper is the ongoing debate surrounding how effective these solutions are at delivering the required outcomes of traditional hands-on laboratories and the overall effect that their use has on the student experience.

Since this debate is presently unresolved, this work uses remote labs (weblabs) to reinforce an experiment, as opposed to replacing the experiment. This is in agreement with work by Larrauri and Garcia (2003) and Henry (2000) who all note that students would require different support if weblabs were to replace a hands-on practical completely than if they were used to enhance an existing practical.

ReLOAD (Real Labs Operated At Distance)

ReLOAD was developed within the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds and first used in 2000. It has subsequently been re-developed in part, using mini-project funding from the HEA Engineering Subject Centre. It was originally designed to overcome some of the challenges of traditional hands-on laboratories that have been described in previous sections of this paper. ReLOAD allows access to experimental equipment via a web interface and was initially piloted using level two undergraduates studying vibration and control using the school’s intranet. This allowed time to tackle any potential technical difficulties which, as noted by Givens (2000), often offset the benefits of access to the experiments. Once this pilot was successful the experiment was made available via the internet. The experiment was based on a hands-on laboratory already integrated into the teaching of students at Leeds which involved the investigation of how various parameters (i.e. input frequency and input amplitude) affect the performance of a position servo mechanism. Using ReLOAD this investigation could be reproduced across the web with the experiment being linked up to a webcam. Once a student accesses the experiment they are presented with a parameters input web page as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 The parameter input web page (Weightman, 2007)

Once the student submits their required parameters the equipment, based in the foyer of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Leeds, will conduct the experiment. In a short space of time the student will receive a web page presenting the results in a number of ways: three individual graphs and an embedded video clip of the experiment which can be replayed. This takes into account Henry’s observation (2000) that students engaged with these weblabs will need different kinds of support, such as video clips, to allow some visual learning. An example of the results page is shown in Figure 2. Further technical details of the operation of ReLOAD can be found in the paper by Weightman (2007).

Initial feedback from the students was very positive but, as the bulk of the literature on this topic notes, there tends to be little evaluation of learning outcomes (which was the case with this pilot). Whilst positive feedback is a desirable outcome (as noted by Lindsay in 2002), this is secondary to the students’ acquisition of desirable skills and knowledge. Taking these facts on board it was decided to use a similar approach to that of Larrauri (2003): to use the weblab as a tool of reinforcement, not as a substitute for the actual practical, and to monitor how the students used this new tool, if at all. What would be noted in particular would be which of the students frequently accessed the weblab and if the weblab offered an alternative method of support to students within the four widening participation target groups.

Figure 2 The results web page (Weightman, 2007)

ReLOAD and Widening Participation (WP)

Traditionally, engineering has been seen as having a student base of predominately middle class white males and, as such, has built its teaching methods and tools around supporting this student base. As widening participation initiatives such as the LEP begin to show success this student base profile will change to incorporate more women, ethnic minorities, adult learners and first generation HEI students. This in itself will bring further challenges to the development of the engineering curriculum, some examples of which are: ensuring that women do not feel isolated and intimidated if in a predominately male environment or group; how to support learners who are unable to commit to the traditional 9am to 5pm timetable of engineering due to childcare or religious reasons and how to develop a more flexible delivery of the curriculum to suit all religious holidays, not just the traditional Christian holidays as is the case at present. As will be later noted, group work (whilst a necessity for laboratories) raises a host of issues. For example, in addition to the usual personality clashes that occur within groups, with WP an academic must be more aware of clashes of gender and culture.

In order to review the use and effect of ReLOAD on WP students the weblab was integrated into a third year applied mechanics and automatic control module in the School of Mechanical Engineering at University College London and a postgraduate distance-delivered module in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds. A review of the student profile breakdown at UCL showed it had a higher than average number of female students (24% compared to 14% female engineering undergraduates nationally). There was also a broad profile of ethnic minorities, although it should be noted that none of the group were Afro-Caribbean. This allowed us to review the use and effect of the weblab by several of our target groups, predominantly female students and ethnic minorities. In addition to this the course at the University of Leeds, in which the weblab was integrated, was designed to be taken by mature students in industry and thus targeted the final group of adult learners. There were also a number of overseas students within both groups for whom English was not their first language. The only group which we were unable to track were those who were the first generation of their family into HE as personal family history information had not been gathered from this group.

The module at UCL ran with one two-hour lecture per week and two supporting laboratories — one incorporating ReLOAD and the second incorporating MatLab. The ReLOAD laboratory was entitled ‘Frequency Response Methods’ and the aim of the assignment was to develop an understanding of the frequency response technique, how it represented the dynamic performance of a linear system and how frequency analysis can be used to identify a linear model of an unknown physical system. To achieve this aim the laboratory was broken down into three distinct parts, the first of which was designed to give the students an opportunity to understand, use and manipulate the equations used in frequency response. The second part of the laboratory looked at using frequency response to describe the response of a system, providing the students with a theoretical system with figures to manipulate and interpret. The final section of the laboratory was to use a remotely operated servo system (ReLOAD) that allowed the students to generate their own data which could then be examined using the methods learned in parts one and two. The assignment finally required the students to look in detail at the effects of varying several parameters and to interpret the results. The assignment was set before the Christmas vacation and involved a group demonstration of an in-house servo system followed by group sessions with the students on ReLOAD. Whilst this section of the assignment was done in groups, all the students were required to hand in an individual report which was due two weeks after Christmas. Once this initial introduction to ReLOAD had taken place it was referred to throughout the year to reinforce various theories delivered in this module.

At Leeds University, on this occasion, ReLOAD was used to support adult learners on a distance learning course where it was not logistically possible to use a hands-on demonstration. The students were given access to ReLOAD which was then integrated into the teaching of their module.

Results

The results of this pilot were gathered in several ways. Informal discussions were held with all the students at UCL to determine how they felt about the weblab and what they used it for. As each student had a unique identity code within the system it was also possible to track when they were accessing the laboratory, what experiments they were conducting and for how long. Finally, a comparison of performance was made between those distance learners who had no additional hands-on laboratory and those students who had both the hands-on activities and access to the weblab.

Figures 3, 4 and 5 show examples of the access data available for the whole experiment.

Each graph shows the distribution of the number of students visiting and engaging with the site at a particular time. This is opposed to the number of student ‘hits’ (visiting the site and then no further activity). The graphs are designed to show the trend of use, as opposed to statistical numerical data, and are for comparative purposes only.

Figure 3 Daily usage distribution for December 2006

Figure 4 Daily usage distribution for January 2007

Figure 5 Average hourly usage for January 2007

Observations through student feedback and studying the access statistics over the year

Whilst the students were set a specific task and experiment, the access statistics showed that students were returning to the experiment far more often than would be required to complete the task. It also appeared that students were ‘playing’ with the experiment, entering data and completing tasks unrelated to the required task. Larrauri and Garcia (2003) attribute this behaviour to ‘the novelty factor’ of being able to access the experiment on the web and pose the question: if all laboratories had a supporting weblab would the students still complete more experiments? From informal discussions with students in this study, some cited ‘novelty’ as a factor but others stated that they were checking and repeating results obtained in the hands-on situation, with some using the weblab to experiment further with differing parameters and, as such, broadening their knowledge in this field. Perhaps students were deliberately entering extreme or ‘wrong’ values to see what would happen, although there is no evidence of this and it was not cited by any of the students in these groups.

Larrauri and Garcia (2003) also noted that there was a high use of web laboratory equipment on days when students would not be able to access a traditional laboratory. This was true of the work herein, demonstrated by students accessing the weblab often late into the night, at weekends, during vacations and some even on Christmas Day.

When the examination scores of students who only did the weblab with no hands-on session (such as the distance learners) were analysed, their scores suggested that they performed as well as those students who also had the face to face version of the laboratory, although this needs further investigation.

Overseas students cited that they were able to access the weblab from their home countries, doing work previously impossible with the hands-on alone option; with those students whose first language was not English noting that they felt less pressure during the hands-on laboratory sessions as they were able to repeat the sessions in their own time and at their own pace.

Generally the whole experiment was seen in a very positive light by the students who felt it showed support. Many appreciated the alternative approach.

All academics come across issues with group working when students are unable or unwilling to work in certain groups. Sometimes these situations can be resolved by reappointing the groups, but only when the students have the confidence to raise the issue with the academic and when there is enough time to make changes.

It was noted by students that, by using the weblabs, they were able to repeat experiments in their own time if they found the group as a whole had underperformed and that they were less inclined to push towards changing their group and felt more positive about group work.

Whilst supporting group work generally, it was also noted that weblabs provided much-needed support for group issues created directly as a result of WP success. Each of the groups was culturally diverse and predominantly male but, as all students were required to complete the additional weblab, it allowed cultural and gender differences to be put aside.

Throughout the period of the laboratory some students faced the difficult situation of needing to attend or to fast for various religious festivals. The use of weblabs allowed the students to access the laboratory at a time that suited their personal circumstances. Weblabs would also seem to support in a similar way those part time learners who are adults with childcare commitments.

Conclusions

Weblabs can be seen to support the general student base by:

• giving them the opportunity to attempt additional experiments. This is shown by the extended use of ReLOAD by many students who accessed the laboratory far more than the set exercise required;

• giving them access to the laboratory at a time they require (e.g. late at night). Figures 3 – 5 support this statement by showing the access of students at times when a hands-on laboratory would not be available;

• giving them access to laboratories whilst overseas. This was cited by several of the students as a huge advantage. It should also be noted that this may account for some of the night activity of the server (i.e. the server being accessed globally by students);

• broadening their knowledge and helping them experiment further than before. This is again supported by the access of students being far more than that required for the completion of the set exercise;

• allowing them continuing access to a laboratory that supports a number of modules on automatic control. This is evidenced and supported by statistics showing the students still continuing to access the laboratory even after the assignment had been submitted.

In addition to the above it is believed that weblabs can support a diverse student base resulting from engagement in widening participation by:

• allowing students who struggled within their group to repeat the work;

• giving students the opportunity to correct any mistakes made in the laboratory and therefore improve their grades;

• allowing less academic students the opportunity to improve their grades and more academic students the opportunity to enhance their learning;

• allowing students who struggled within their group (e.g. the lone female in a male group) to repeat the work in a non-threatening environment;

• providing students studying through distance learning with the opportunity to engage in laboratory work;

• providing access to equipment at times to suit diverse religious needs;

• supporting part-time students, many of whom will have childcare considerations.

Further work and observations would be required to prove the above points conclusively.

Recommendations for the future

What this work has shown is that projects developed initially to support and enhance the student learning and general experience at university can, if correctly used, also support the more recent issues encountered through the success of WP.

Both UCL and the University of Leeds are moving towards more complex experiments, such as vibrating aeroplane wings, to broaden the student experience. Feedback on the present weblab has suggested that students would like to see some feedback loops for them and this has been supported with a further mini-project grant from the HEA Engineering Subject Centre. The London Engineering Project would like to look at further developing mini weblabs to support the widening student body in engineering.

In addition to this the authors are looking to develop a HEA Engineering Subject Centre Special Interest Group around the issues of weblabs and would like to hear from anyone interested in joining.