Iris Publishers - Global Journal of Engineering Sciences (GJES)

Developing Virtual Equipment to Enhance Learning of Structures and Material Science in an Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering Program


Authored by Genisson Silva Coutinho



Laboratory education represents an essential component of engineering curricula [1]. Laboratories help students to learn concepts, principles, and also fundamental engineering skills such as designing, problem-solving, and troubleshooting [2]. Despite this role, a series of constraints may prevent the ideal use of laboratories in engineering education. For example, traditional hands-on laboratories usually require significant investment in equipment, infrastructure, and space [3,4]. This fact may prevent universities and departments from creating the ideal lab environments necessary to students’ learning of knowledge and skills [5]. To fix the issues caused by these constraints, educators are adopting emerging technologies that make the lab more inclusive, creative and effective. Among these emerging technologies, virtual laboratories are becoming pervasive in engineering education [6,7].

 

Virtual labs have numerous affordances that make its use highly appreciated by educators and institutions. First, they usually require lower investment and fewer resources [8]. Second, they allow remote access, are accessible to students with disabilities and are safe to students [9]. Third, virtual labs enhance students conceptual understanding through the use of simulations and representations of abstract phenomena [10]. Finally, virtual labs usually are flexible and allow students to change the values of the different variables and explore the experimental results in a faster way than hands-on or remote experimentation [11]. A common critique regarding the use of virtual labs refers to use of idealized data that usually do not reflect the uncertainties and nuances of the real world [12]. Also, these labs usually lack the sense of reality necessary to immerse students in more authentic experiences [13]. Furthermore, a great deal of virtual labs focuses on the development of students’ conceptual understanding about a particular phenomenon or theory [6]. To do this, the developers of such environments focus on reproducing or simulating the behavior of those phenomena, or systems, in the face of different variables. Students may vary the different variables and analyze how the system behaves. In most cases, characteristics associated with the equipment, the setup, the environment, as well as, all the experimental procedures are neglected.

 

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