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The educational applications of extended reality (XR) modalities, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), have increased significantly over the last ten years. Many educators within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) related degree programs see student benefits that could be derived from bringing these modalities into classrooms, which include but are not limited to: a better understanding of each of the subdisciplines and the coordination necessary between them, visualizing oneself as a professional in AEC, and visualization of difficult concepts to increase engagement, self-efficacy, and learning. These benefits, in turn, help recruitment and retention efforts for these degree programs. However, given the number of technologies available and the fact that they quickly become outdated, there is confusion about the definitions of the different XR modalities and their unique capabilities. This lack of knowledge, combined with limited faculty time and lack of financial resources, can make it overwhelming for educators to choose the right XR modality to accomplish particular educational objectives. There is a lack of guidance in the literature for AEC educators to consider various factors that affect the success of an XR intervention. Grounded in a comprehensive literature review and the educational framework of the Model of Domain Learning, this paper proposes a decision-making framework to help AEC educators select the appropriate technologies, platforms, and devices to use for various educational outcomes (e.g., learning, interest generation, engagement) considering factors such as budget, scalability, space/equipment needs, and the potential benefits and limitations of each XR modality. To this end, a comprehensive review of the literature was performed to decipher various definitions of XR modalities and how they have been previously utilized in AEC Education. The framework was then successfully validated at a summer camp in the School of Building Construction at Georgia Institute of Technology, highlighting the importance of using appropriate XR technologies depending on the educational context.

 

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. 

The concepts of size and scale in nanotechnology are difficult for most beginning engineering students to grasp. Yet, guidance on the specific aspects of size and scale that should be taught and assessed is limited.

This research sought to empirically develop a framework for size and scale conceptualization and provide a blueprint to guide curriculum development and assessment.

Through an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, we qualitatively examined 30 teams of 119 first‐year engineering students' nanotechnology‐based projects to identify concepts beyond those in the literature to create a Size and Scale Framework (SSF). We then created a blueprint with associated learning objectives that can guide curriculum and assessment development. To demonstrate the utility of the SSF blueprint, an SSF‐based quiz was developed and studied using classical test theory with 378 first‐year engineering students.

The findings categorized size and scale in terms of eight aspects: Definition, Qualitative Categorical, Qualitative Relational, Qualitative Proportional, Quantitative Absolute, Quantitative Categorical, Quantitative Relational, and Quantitative Proportional. The SSF can be applied as a blueprint for others to develop curriculum and assessment. The SSF‐based quiz demonstrated acceptable properties for use with first‐year engineering students.

Development of the SSF‐based quiz is an example of how the SSF can be applied to create a classroom quiz to assess students' size and scale knowledge in the context of nanotechnology.