Contents
Dr Dave Muir (Lecturer Engineering Systems (Automation and STEM) School of Science and Technology, City, University of London
[Lightning talk 6]
Students perform tasks in groups then evaluate themselves and each other. This is done after a build exercise in the Virtual Reality environment having given guidelines.
Virtual reality (VR) is emerging as an innovative tool in engineering education, revolutionizing the way students learn and engage with engineering systems (Han et al., 2023). The integration of advanced technology into real educational processes is paramount for future proofing learning and development within engineering (Asham et al.,2023 ). However, there is limited evidence of students’ experience of VR within engineering and how this technology could be used to enhance engineering students learning (Xhao et al., 2023). Therefore, we aim to evaluate and report outcomes on the experience of electrical engineering students’ use of virtual reality (VR) within engineering education and explore whether traditional assessments methods are still applicable.
Twenty Electrical engineering students were exposed to VR during a power engineering module over a period of 3 weeks. Module topics include, generation, transmission and distribution of electrical energy. A novel aspect of this module involved students in the creation of the virtual environment. Students completed a pre and post module questionnaire focused on their views and opinions of the use VR within module.
Outcomes from the module survey along with a review of the literature are used to evaluate and provide recommendations on how VR can be embedded, integrated, assessed and implemented in future development of power engineering modules. As engineering educators strive to prepare students for the challenges of the modern world, this VR experience offers a promising avenue to enhance learning outcomes once feedback is incorporated and gaps between theory and practice are bridged through effective VR design.
References
Han, B., Weeks, D.J. & Leite, F. 2023, “Virtual reality‐facilitated engineering education: A case study on sustainable systems knowledge”, Computer applications in engineering education, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 1174-1189.
Asham, Y., Bakr, M.H. & Emadi, A. 2023, “Applications of Augmented and Virtual Reality in Electrical Engineering Education: A Review”, IEEE access, vol. 11, pp. 1-1.
Hincapie, M., Diaz, C., Valencia, A., Contero, M. & Güemes-Castorena, D. 2021, “Educational applications of augmented reality: A bibliometric study”, Computers & electrical engineering, vol. 93, pp. 107289.
Zhao, X., Ren, Y. & Cheah, K.S.L. 2023, “Leading Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) in Education: Bibliometric and Content Analysis From the Web of Science (2018–2022)”, SAGE open, vol. 13, no. 3.
