Virtual reality application to aid civil engineering laboratory course: A multicriteria comparative study

Abstract

The social distancing measure imposed worldwide to combat the outbreak of the novel coronavirus has seen rapid adoption of technologies to support online education. Compared to traditional lecture-based courses, online teaching is particularly more challenging for laboratory courses where hands-on activities are essential to achieve the learning outcomes. To deal with this issue, the study presented in this paper was aimed to: (1) to develop a virtual reality (VR) application to aid a civil engineering laboratory course, and (2) to measure the potential of the VR-aided learning (VRAL) application in civil engineering education by assessing the learners' preferences toward VRAL compared to instructor-aided learning (IAL) and video-aided learning (VAL). Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process, a comparison was conducted with 21 civil engineering students from both undergraduate and graduate levels. The results indicated that VRAL was more preferable than VAL by the participants based on the aspects of “interactivity” (the ability to provide theoretical and practical learning environments to the learners), “cognitive interest” (the ability to drive learners to engage in learning activity), “ease of understanding the content” (the ability to provide a clear lecture interpretation, i.e., easy to understand), and “support for learning” (the ability to help learners to achieve the learning goal). Although VRAL was comparatively less preferable than IAL by the participants overall, it was viewed as better in terms of cognitive interest and “accessibility” (the ability to provide learners with better access to the learning approach in terms of time and location). Complementing previous research, the findings supported the benefits of VR applications to aid civil engineering education.