On the use of virtual environments in engineering education

Abstract

Virtual resources (VR) in the form of interactive media applications (IMA), didactic videos (DV), interactive virtual platforms (IVP) or Small Virtual Resources (SVR), etc. are becoming powerful didactic tools in university teaching. This is particularly important in the case of engineering studies where these VR allow overcoming spatial visualization problems, learning mechanisms operation, etc., and increasing the student motivation in learning process. Thus, the understanding of complex concepts in engineering can be solved. In this paper, a review of the student opinion with regard to the use of diverse VR is presented. To achieve this goal, during the last years (2013-2015) different VR in diverse forms (IMA, DV, IVP and SVR) were used in teaching of engineering degrees at three different engineering schools. The opinion of students was collected in the form of surveys applied at the end of the course. According to obtained results, students considered very useful the use of VR in teaching/learning. However, they do consider them necessary as a complement of the teacher master class. In addition, from students' surveys, an estimation of the time distribution for each teaching activity can be draft which provides useful information for adapting the teaching of engineering studies.