An important aim in engineering education is that students should not only acquire knowledge, but they should be able to use this knowledge in action. I.e. they should develop professional capabilities for knowledgeable action and actionable knowledge. According to Markauskaite and Goodyear professional knowledgeable action requires a holistic, fluent and co-ordinated use of semiotic and material tools, body and environment. Knowledgeable action requires the development of epistemic fluency that involves the ability to smoothly move between abstract, contextual and situated ways of knowing and the capacity to employ multiple epistemic tools. However, the epistemic complexity of knowledgeable action is often underestimated in engineering education. This epistemic complexity has been addressed by Carstensen and Bernhard who have developed the notion of “learning of complex concepts” (LCC-model) that models how students learn to master epistemic tools by “making links”. In this study we have used the LCC-model as an investigatory tool to analyse video-recordings from electric circuit theory courses. The aim was to gain an increased understanding in how students develop epistemic fluency. We will discuss critical features in the design of labs and in the use of real experiments, computer simulations, modelling and other semiotic and material tools in labs for students' development of epistemic fluency. The results of this study show that labs can be designed to facilitate students' development of epistemic fluency by making links. 

In this study we report from our experiences designing and re-designing a lab where engineering students studied transient response in electric circuits. In the first version of the lab students had difficulties doing the mathematical modeling of the experimentally measured graphs as it required students' to link the time- and frequency domains as well as the object/event and theory/model worlds simultaneously. In the re-designed lab some computer simulations were included together with the original experiments on real circuits. The simulations opened up for learning and enabled students to establish links that are hard access directly with real experiments. Still doing real experiments is important to secure students ability to make links between models and theories and the physical reality. This study demonstrates that synergetic learning effects can be achieved by a careful design using an insightful combination of real experiments and computer simulations. Hence, we propose that the question of "real" experiments or "virtual" labs using computer simulations are best for students' learning is not an either or question. Rather, it is a question of finding the right blend to achieve synergetic effects.

Producing structured, meaningful and useful descriptions (representations) of students’ learning in labs is not straightforward. Two possible approaches are compared here. Students’ courses of action in labs of an electric circuit course were video-recorded, then the activities during the labs were described and analysed using “the learning of a complex concept” (LCC) methodology. Conversations during the full lengths of the same labs were also transcribed verbatim. Subsequent analysis indicates that transcription offers a more detailed representation of the learning and interaction that occurred. However, it is considerably slower than LCC methodology, which can also represent learning in the full length of a lab in some detail. Furthermore, the latter gave a better overview of the analysed labs than transcription and more readily facilitated representation of both learning complexities and linking theory to practice. In conclusion, both methods can play valuable roles in engineering education research, depending on the questions addressed.

Contribution: This paper reports engineering students' practical epistemic cognition by studying their interactional work in situ. Studying "epistemologies in action'' the study breaks away from mainstream approaches that describe this in terms of beliefs or of stage theories.

Background: In epistemology, knowledge is traditionally seen as "justified true belief'', neglecting knowledge related to action. Interest has increased in studying the epistemologies people use in situated action, and their development of epistemic fluency. How appropriate such approaches are in engineering and design education need further investigation.

Research Questions: 1) How do students in the context of a design project use epistemic tools in their interactional work? and 2) What are the implications of the findings in terms of how students' cognitive and epistemological development could be conceptualized?

Methodology: A collaborative group of six students were video recorded on the 14th day of a fifth-semester design project, as they were preparing for a formal critique session. The entire, almost 6 h, session was recorded by four video cameras mounted in the design studio, with an additional fifth body-mounted camera. The video data collected was analyzed using video ethnographic, conversation analysis, and embodied interaction analysis methods.

Findings: The results show that the students use a wealth of bodily material resources as an integral and seamless part of their interactions as epistemic tools, in their joint production of understanding and imagining. The analysis also suggests that students' epistemological and cognitive development, individually and as a group, should be understood in terms of developing "epistemic fluency.'' 

BACKGROUND: Commonly in electric circuit theory courses, circuit laws are first introduced in the context of direct current (DC) electricity and first thereafter are alternating currents (AC) introduced. The extension of DC-theory to AC is quite easily done mathematically but is conceptually difficult for students. Engineering students have difficulties in understanding phase relationships and phasor representations in AC-electricity. Indeed, it has been suggested that phase should be seen as a threshold concept.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate if a re-designed introductory electric circuit course could improve students’ understanding of important concepts in AC-electricity.

METHOD and COURSE DESIGN: The course was re-designed introducing AC and DC electricity simultaneously. DC was introduced as a special case of AC with requency equals zero. The re-designed course was taught for the first time during the spring semester 2014 and a new textbook was written. A conceptual test was developed and first administered in 2013 to serve as a baseline and in subsequent years to evaluate the revised course. In 2014 the students’ courses of action in selected lab-groups were video-recorded.

RESULTS: In the first revision cycle many students had difficulties to complete the labs in time. Students revealed a mixed response towards the revised course and the results on the conceptual test showed neglible improvement. In the second cycle revisions the number tasks were reduced and focus was laid on tasks that were identified as most important for contributing to the development of student understanding. As a result the learning gain improved with an effect size (Cohen’s delta) of 0.56. Also the course and the textbook were very well appreciated. In the third cycle only small revisions are made.

CONCLUSION: The results show that that AC-electricity can be taught concurrently with DC. However, two revisions cycles was needed which demonstrates that curriculum development needs a sustained effort over a considerable period of time with continuous revisions in light of gained experiences. In further revision we will continue to refine the labs and to develop appropriate interactive lecture demonstrations for the lectures and to develop the problems.

Modelling is a central activity in practical engineering and something that is also useful in engineering education research (EER). Additionally, qualitative research methods have found important applications in engineering research, although their use in EER has not always been widely accepted. Design science research is a qualitative research approach in which the object of study is the design process, i.e. it simultaneously generates knowledge about the method used to design an artefact and the design or the artefact itself. This paper uses techniques from design science research to analyse the method used when deriving the ‘learning of a complex concept’ (LCC) model, which we developed while designing teaching sequences for a course on electrical engineering. Our results demonstrate the value of design science research in EER and suggest that the LCC model is generally applicable in this field.

Modelling is an engineering activity commonly used by engineers, and can be used also in engineering education research (EER). The use of qualitative research methods have in EER not always been widely accepted but have recently gained more attention (Case & Light, 2011). There are, however, also qualitative research methods in engineering research that may be used in EER (Bernhard, in press). One such approach is design science research, where the object of research is the design process, i.e. the knowledge retrieved is not always knowledge about the phenomenon, the artefact, the design, but rather knowledge about the method used. This paper aims at researching the method used when deriving the model “the learning of a complex concept”, the LCC-model, which we developed while designing teaching sequences in a course in electrical engineering.

In engineering the student is often ‘faced with contrasting representations or models’ (Entwistle et al., 2005, p. 9), which Entwistle explores as ‘ways of thinking and practising’ (ibid). These contrasting representations are in electric circuits for example: graphs, mathematical models, drawings of circuits and the real circuits. In our research we have found that exploring the relationships - links - between these different representations, as well in the theory/model domain as in the object/event domain (Tiberghien, Vince, & Gaidioz, 2009) is of uttermost importance. We have developed a tool for investigation of ‘the learning of a complex concept’ (Carstensen & Bernhard, 2008a) which we have used in order to find critical aspects, which we call “key concepts” (Carstensen & Bernhard, 2008b), which open up the portal of understanding threshold concepts.

In this paper we will explore these links further. As we have continued our work on how students make links between the different islands of single concepts, in order to make a whole of the complex concept, we have noted that the links between these islands are of different kinds. We will here discuss what kinds of relationships these links consist of, and how they differ in ways of coping with them for students, and how the teachers may notice and highlight these relationships in their instructions.

We have video recorded students interactions during lab-work and analysed these tapes according to the Theory of Variation (Marton & Tsui, 2004). Now we are taking this further, and make a more detailed analysis of what the links are, and by that we contribute to the understanding of the nature of a threshold concept.