TY - GEN
T1 - Use of Virtual Reality to Improve Engagement and Self-Efficacy in Architectural Engineering Disciplines
AU - Erdogmus, Ece
AU - Ryherd, Erica
AU - Diefes-Dux, Heidi A.
AU - Armwood-Gordon, Catherine
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank Ben Kreimer, Kyungki Kim, Josephine Lau, Jennifer Lather, and Iason Konstantzos for their contributions to the VADER conceptualization, content development, and build; Lauren Ronsse for contributions in VADER implementation; Tareq Daher for contributions in learning module development, and Morgan McArthur for contributions to coding the student responses. The authors also wish to acknowledge the funding from UNL Layman New Directions seed grant that made the VADER pilot possible.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 IEEE.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents findings from the implementation of a virtual reality-based learning module. In the Fall of 2020, a prototype for a novel intervention namely, Virtual/Augmented-Reality-Based Discipline Exploration Rotations (VADERs), was offered as part of the first-year Introduction to Architectural Engineering (AE) classes at two universities. VADERs will ultimately be a collection of modules that are designed to improve student engagement and diversity-awareness by providing interactive virtual explorations of an engineering discipline and its sub-disciplines. VADERs utilize an open source, device-agnostic, and browser-based three-dimensional Virtual Reality (VR) platform, creating unique accessibility, synchronous social affordances, and media asset flexibility. The conjecture explored in this paper is: Having first-year engineering students experience Architectural Engineering and its sub-disciplines through an interactive VADER module, will improve their self-efficacy in regards to their commitment to studying the discipline. A total of 89 students participated in the VADER pilot in Fall 2020. Complete data was collected from 67 of these participants in the form of pre- and post-surveys, and final project deliverables. Results tied to the hypothesis and recommendations for future related work are discussed.
AB - This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents findings from the implementation of a virtual reality-based learning module. In the Fall of 2020, a prototype for a novel intervention namely, Virtual/Augmented-Reality-Based Discipline Exploration Rotations (VADERs), was offered as part of the first-year Introduction to Architectural Engineering (AE) classes at two universities. VADERs will ultimately be a collection of modules that are designed to improve student engagement and diversity-awareness by providing interactive virtual explorations of an engineering discipline and its sub-disciplines. VADERs utilize an open source, device-agnostic, and browser-based three-dimensional Virtual Reality (VR) platform, creating unique accessibility, synchronous social affordances, and media asset flexibility. The conjecture explored in this paper is: Having first-year engineering students experience Architectural Engineering and its sub-disciplines through an interactive VADER module, will improve their self-efficacy in regards to their commitment to studying the discipline. A total of 89 students participated in the VADER pilot in Fall 2020. Complete data was collected from 67 of these participants in the form of pre- and post-surveys, and final project deliverables. Results tied to the hypothesis and recommendations for future related work are discussed.
KW - Architectural Engineering
KW - First-year
KW - Self-efficacy
KW - Virtual reality
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U2 - 10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637182
DO - 10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637182
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85123862968
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
BT - Proceedings - 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2021
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2021
Y2 - 13 October 2021 through 16 October 2021
ER -