It has always been a challenge for educators to teach in a class with diverse backgrounds in education. This situation would be more serious in a general education course where students are expected to learn subject knowledge that has little relevance to their own disciplines.
Prof Cynthia HOU, IHERD Fellow, attempted to address the situation with the use of virtual reality (VR) technologies. She identified the engineering concept that could be enhanced by VR technologies, developed a VR educational platform for the purpose, and put the platform to test.
The result is encouraging, as it was found that for the same engineering concepts, there was no significant difference in learning outcome for both engineering and non-engineering students. While the VR educational platform could still be improved, this would be a good indicator of the effectiveness of using advanced technologies in improving the overall learning outcomes of courses where students come from diverse backgrounds.
The study was presented during The Korean Conference on Education on 30 October 2024 in Incheon with the title “Enhancing Engineering Education: Efficacy of a Virtual Classroom on Learning Basic Indoor Thermal Environment Engineering Concept”.
