An analysis of the provision of context within existing remote laboratories Tania Machet, David Lowe School of Information Technologies The University of Sydney Sydney, Australia tmac2470@uni.sydney.edu.au , david.lowe@sydney.edu.au Abstract— Laboratory work is a well-accepted component of science and engineering programs. One emerging trend has been the increasing utilisation of remotely accessed laboratories, where the students can remotely monitor and/or control physical apparatus, typically across the internet. This supports greater flexibility of access for students as well as the possibility of sharing of facilities between institutions. One additional benefit is greater flexibility in designing the learning context within which the laboratory can be positioned. As the interaction is computer mediated, it becomes simpler to modify this interface and hence change the laboratory context. Research has shown that context can have a significant effect on learning outcomes, students’ retention of information, engagement with learning and on knowledge transfer from one domain to another (see, for example, [1],[2]). Despite this there has been little consideration given to understanding contextual information provided in laboratories in general and remote laboratories in particular. In this paper we report on an analysis of contextual information provided within remote laboratories. Consideration is given to the ways in which the contextual information provides a connection between the real-world concepts being explored and the laboratory as a proxy for those concepts. The analysis shows that there is a diverse range of approaches and representational forms and suggests a new taxonomy that may be useful in describing the context found in laboratory activities for future analysis and design. Keywords—laboratory; remote; context I. INTRODUCTION All learning occurs within a context, irrespective of whether that context has been actively constructed or is an incidental or unintended consequence of either the learning activity or the learner’s history. The nature of the context and how this context relates to the concepts being learnt has been widely shown to have an effect on learning outcomes [3], [4]. Whilst this effect has been studied in a number of disciplines and over a range of different types of learning activities, we are specifically interested in how context can be used in laboratory activities – an area in which there has been relatively little written. In previous work [5] it was argued that the provision within laboratory experimentation of an explicit domain context that can clarify the relationship between the experimental apparatus and a real-world situation which it can represent, could potentially support improved learning outcomes. In particular, this is based on the development of a clearer understanding of the relationships between the aspects of reality being investigated, the laboratory apparatus that is acting as a proxy for that reality and the conceptual model that describes some aspect of that reality. Contextual elements that aim to clarify these relationships between the laboratory, its underlying model and the real world (including, importantly, where the relationships break down) are present in many laboratory activities but often their inclusion is done without systematic consideration of the design of these elements. In order to begin reasoning about context in laboratories it would be beneficial to analyse existing laboratory activities to determine the different forms and functions that exist in the contextual elements of a range of laboratories. This would support the development of a framework that can be used to analyse and subsequently strengthen contextual aspects of existing laboratories as well as design contexts for new laboratories in such a way as to support laboratory learning outcomes. Remotely accessed laboratories which, by necessity, have computer mediated interfaces, have provided educators with the opportunity to modify lab interfaces and supply contextual information in new formats (as opposed to laboratory notes and instruction). The literature presents a number of learning activities using remote labs that have been enhanced in such a way to support learning outcomes, however few of these specially look at the nature of the context provided [6]. Remote laboratories provide a suitably varied range of contextualisation to begin this analysis. In this paper we look at the types of contextual elements that are relevant to laboratories, and the ways in which these might be classified. We begin by analysing existing literature to determine how context is currently described, with a particular emphasis on considering science education. Focusing on domain context, the ideas are then applied to a diverse range of remote laboratories in order to develop a 978-1-4799-8454-1/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE