Active Student Engagement in Learning - Using Virtual Reality Technology to Develop Professional Skills for Petroleum Engineering Education
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AbstractVirtual reality (VR) technology, which is the most immersive type of reality technology, can be used in simulating real workplace for occupational safety, trainings, and educational purposes. It encourages students to develop deeper understanding of content. In addition, it allows active learning that transitions students from being mere recipients of information to being participants actively engaged in the learning process. The implementation of this technology makes it possible to improve the effectiveness of the education by simplifying what is normally challenging to understand in physical classrooms. For example, VR can be used to help in visualizing and understanding the differences between different offshore oil and gas rigs. Field trips are one way of adding variety to instruction, thus optimizing teaching effctiveness while motivating student learning. Field trips help bridge formal and informal learning by connecting the students to the real-world experiences. Despite research confirming enhanced learning, sometimes it is not feasible to arrange the fild trips due to several logistical and safety reasons. This study set out to bring real-world petroleum facilities to the classroom with the help of VR technology in the Middle East campus. The goal is develop a tool that overcome the restrictions that are associated with the real field trips, increase the students interest and enhance their learning experience by using innovative teaching method in petroleum engineering courses. The developed VR-based field trips allowed petroleum engineering students to experience a range of field areas at a fraction of the cost of conventional real field trips, whilst forgoing restrictions due harsh climate and limited accessibility in relative comfort, addressing gender and disability equality within engineering education. Besides all this, the VR-based field trips allowed the students to access the reservoir, which is not possible in reality. Finally, the student feedback on the VR-based field trip demonstrate positive support of learning methods as it creates amazing experiences, and they feel it is exciting and engaging. In addition it also provided an effective way of emphasizing the learning process in petroleum engineering education and promotes active learning for new generations.
