Graduating Students' Perceptions of Learning Design in an Undergraduate Engineering Course

BACKGROUNDUndergraduate Civil Engineering Course at Deakin University, Australia is relatively a new course. It graduated its second main cohort in 2013. Since its beginning in 2012, this study has been running an internal annual Course Experience Surveys targeted at uncovering the graduating students’ perceptions on three components of contemporary learning system provided by Deakin University learning design, learning environment and the human factor. Learning design covers the learning curriculum, learning resources, learning activities and learning supports; learning environment includes physical environment, virtual environment and psychosocial environment; and human factor includes learners, facilitators/teachers and help/support staff and their culture. There is a common agreement among educators in higher education that these three components of learning system should interact and complement each other in order to maximise student learning. This paper coversonly learning design aspect of the overall surveys from 2012 and 2013.PURPOSEThe aim of this study is to analyse the students’ perceptions of learning design provided by Deakin University to its undergraduate civil engineering students in 2012 and 2013. This will help track down the progresses in different aspects of learning design and to understand whether the learning design provided by the institution have actually helped students in their learning and met their learning expectations.DESIGN/METHODThis study adopts questionnaire approach to collect original data by asking students about their perceptions of learning design provided by the institution. 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire survey (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree) is developed and responses are collected. The responses are then statistically analysed in order to uncover the students’ perceptions of learning design provided by the university.RESULTSThe statistical analysis shows that the graduating students in both 2012 and 2013 did not perceive some important aspects of the learning design of the undergraduate civil engineering program/course as good as they expected. Moreover, in line with the shift in the learning design paradigm from content-centric to more inclusive learning design where soft skills, self-directed learning skills and research skills are incorporated, graduating students clearly perceived these changes. However, respondents’ perceptions on some components of learning design got slightly down in 2013 compared with 2012 particularly the ‘learning resources’, ‘learning activities’ and ‘learning supports’.CONCLUSIONSThe shift in the learning design paradigm of the undergraduate civil engineering program/course at Deakin University from teacher-centric to student-centric between 2012 and 2013 has not been perceived by students positively as expected. Students have clearly indicated that they prefer improved curriculum, quality learning resources, customised learning activities and additional learning supports in order to successfully implement student-centric learning design.

A virtual environment for cultural and linguistic inclusivity teaching in a global environment

The Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia) operational policy on 'International and Culturally Inclusive Curricula' states that Deakin will incorporate international/intercultural perspectives and inclusive pedagogies into its courses in order to prepare all students to perform capably, ethically and sensitively in international, multicultural, professional and social contexts.

This paper is about a specific project to internationalise the teacher education curriculum through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This project is scoped in the context of the UNESCO thrust of 'Education for All' in agreeing that inclusive societies begin with inclusive education practices. In our view current strategies have been insufficient to ensure that marginalized and excluded children receive access to their right to education.

The project aims to operationalise part of the UNESCO Dakar Framework for high quality learning environments by responding to ‘…the diverse needs and circumstances of learners and giving appropriate weight to the abilities, skills and knowledge they bring to the teaching and learning process’ by minimising language acquisition barriers that can otherwise impede effective communication and learning.

In addition, we need to be mindful of the marginalisation of people from non-English speaking backgrounds and therefore, in this initiative we use ICT to bridge the 'tyranny of distance' and offer a curriculum that values cultural and linguistic diversity.

In this paper we will discuss how we intend to develop these project principles. In particular we will indicate our plans to use relatively low cost, accessible software to develop a virtual environment where students can enter text in their native language, view foreign language text in their native language, hear text in their own language and automatically encode text into MP3 files and attach the files to messages.

A virtual environment for cultural and linguistic inclusivity : teaching in a global environment

This paper is about a project that uses Information and communication technologies in a virtual environment where students can communicate in their own language in text and audio.

User-centered evaluation of a virtual environment training system : utility of user perception measures

This study assessed the utility of measures of Self-efficacy (SelfEfficacy) and Perceived VE efficacy (PVEefficacy) for quantifying how effective VEs are in procedural task training. SelfEfficacy and PVEefficacy have been identified as affective construct potentially underlying VE efficacy that is not evident from user task performance. The motivation for this study is to establish subjective measures of VE efficacy and investigate the relationship between PVEefficacy, SelfEfficacy and User task performance. Results demonstrated different levels of prior experience in manipulating 3D objects in gaming or computer environment (LOE3D) effects on task performance and user perception of VE efficacy. Regression analysis revealed LOE3D, SelfEfficacy,
PVEefficacy explain significant portions of the variance in VE efficacy. Results of the study provide further evidence that task performance may share relationships with PVEefficacy and SelfEfficacy, and that affective constructs, such as PVEefficacy, and SelfEfficacy may serve as alternative, subjective measures of task performance that account for VE efficacy.

Systematic evaluation of a virtual environment-based training systems

This paper explores the application of three constructs that deemed to be essential to quantify virtual environments (VE) efficacy: cognitive, skill-based, and affective learning outcomes. The authors discuss the implementation of these constructs in a user-centered evaluation of a VE training system. By transforming both the conceptual and operational cohorts for training evaluation the authors illustrate the benefits of the development of a Multi-dimensional User-centered Systematic Training Evaluation (MUSTe) method for quantifying VEs efficacy. Importantly, MUSTe acknowledges the importance of combining holistic and analytical approaches in conducting systematic user-based evaluation. Furthermore, it also emphasizes that quantifying VEs efficacy must reflect the perception and preferences of the users rather than the imposition of efficacy on single measures of task outcome. An empirical study that applied MUSTe evaluation method in quantifying a VE training system efficacy provided valuable evidence of the theoretical construct and content validity of the method.

MUSTe method for quantifying virtual environment training system efficacy

In the current era increased attention and interest of utilizing advanced computer technologies for training and education at all managerial levels and functional areas is apparent. One of such technologies, virtual environment (VE), is perceived to be effective in enhancing human abilities to learn abstract concept and complex procedural tasks. Despite its adaptation for training and fast-paced technological advancements, ways in which to evaluate efficacy of such technology are unclear. We have approached this problem by developed a new evaluation method focus on cognitive, affective and skillbased learning dimensions, based on traditional usability evaluation methods but tailored to specifically suit for the quantification of 3D VE system. We first describe the construct of the new method and then report a study utilizing the method in the context of quantifying a VE efficacy in an object assembly task. At last, we discuss the implications of such a method.

Multidimensional evaluation framework for virtual environment efficacy assessment

This research is related to the user-centred design and use of Virtual Environment (VE) training systems. A multidimensional user-centred systematic training evaluation framework that combines ideas from human-computer interaction, training, education and psychology was proposed, which contributes to better design and evaluation of VE user interfaces.

Dealing with rogue virtual machines in a cloud services environment

In current cloud services hosting solutions, various mechanisms have been developed to minimize the possibility of hosting staff from breaching security. However, while functions such as replicating and moving machines are legitimate actions in clouds, we show that there are risks in administrators being able to perform them. We describe three threat scenarios related to hosting staff on the cloud architecture and indicate how an appropriate accountability architecture can mitigate these risks in the sense that the attacks can be detected and the perpetrators identified. We identify requirements and future research and development needed to protect cloud service environments from these attacks.

Utilising the virtual learning environment to encourage faculty reflection and improve the student learning experience

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are the most frequent form of faculty performance in the classroom, though they tend to be used as summative rather than formative evaluations. In this chapter, a project involving the use of a virtual learning environment for formative, weekly SETs is explored from both the student and faculty point of view at a rural university college in the United Kingdom. This project encouraged student participation in creating the learning environment and faculty reflection on how to improve the student experience. From the student perspective, the weekly anonymous evaluations were useful for providing feedback; however, students tended to only respond if they were not satisfied with the faculty member. The exception to this was that some students were more motivated to complete the evaluation forms if they believed the faculty member was utilising their feedback. From the faculty perspective, the feedback was not as detailed as they had expected, and some questioned whether it was worth the effort of conducting formative evaluations if the response rate was so low. Others used the feedback for reflective purposes, and it was found that those that reflected on their work at higher levels tended to receive a greater year-on-year increase in their end of year teaching evaluations.

Prospective memory in a virtual environment: beneficial effects of cue saliency

Prospective Memory (PM) research focuses on how the cognitive system successfully encodes and retains an intention, before retrieving it at a particular future time or in response to a particular future event. Previous work using 2D text stimuli has shown that increasing the saliency of the retrieval cue can improve performance. In this work, we investigated the effect of increased cue saliency in a more ecologically valid 3D virtual environment. The findings indicate that increased perceptual saliency of the cue does benefit PM in a dynamic and visually rich environment but that the impact of cue saliency does not interact with attentional load.

Multitasking: multiple, domain-specific cognitive functions in a virtual environment

Multitasking among three or more different tasks is a ubiquitous requirement of everyday cognition, yet rarely is it addressed in research on healthy adults who have had no specific training in multitasking skills. Participants completed a set of diverse subtasks within a simulated shopping mall and office environment, the Edinburgh Virtual Errands Test (EVET). The aim was to investigate how different cognitive functions, such as planning, retrospective and prospective memory, and visuospatial and verbal working memory, contribute to everyday multitasking. Subtasks were chosen to be diverse, and predictions were derived from a statistical model of everyday multitasking impairments associated with frontal-lobe lesions (Burgess, Veitch, de Lacy Costello, & Shallice, 2000b). Multiple regression indicated significant independent contributions from measures of retrospective memory, visuospatial working memory, and online planning, but not from independent measures of prospective memory or verbal working memory. Structural equation modelling showed that the best fit to the data arose from three underlying constructs, with Memory and Planning having a weak link, but with both having a strong directional pathway to an Intent construct that reflected implementation of intentions. Participants who followed their preprepared plan achieved higher scores than those who altered their plan during multitask performance. This was true regardless of whether the plan was efficient or poor. These results substantially develop and extend the Burgess et al. (2000b) model to healthy adults and yield new insight into the poorly understood area of everyday multitasking. The findings also point to the utility of using virtual environments for investigating this form of complex human cognition.

The impact of working memory load on task execution and online plan adjustment during multitasking in a virtual environment

Three experiments investigated the impact of working memory load on online plan adjustment during a test of multitasking in young, nonexpert, adult participants. Multitasking was assessed using the Edinburgh Virtual Errands Test (EVET). Participants were asked to memorize either good or poor plans for performing multiple errands and were assessed both on task completion and on the extent to which they modified their plans during EVET performance. EVET was performed twice, with and without a secondary task loading a component of working memory. In Experiment 1, articulatory suppression was used to load the phonological loop. In Experiment 2, oral random generation was used to load executive functions. In Experiment 3, spatial working memory was loaded with an auditory spatial localization task. EVET performance for both good- and poor-planning groups was disrupted by random generation and sound localization, but not by articulatory suppression. Additionally, people given a poor plan were able to overcome this initial disadvantage by modifying their plans online. It was concluded that, in addition to executive functions, multiple errands performance draws heavily on spatial, but not verbal, working memory resources but can be successfully completed on the basis of modifying plans online, despite a secondary task load.

Haptic virtual reality training environment for micro-robotic cell injection

Micro-robotic cell injection is typically performed manually by a trainedbio-operator, and success rates are often low. To enhance bio-operator performance during real-time cell injection, our earlier work introduced a haptically-enabled micro-robotic cell injection system. The system employed haptic virtual fixtures to provide haptic guidance according to articular performance metrics. This paper extends the work by replicating the system within a virtual reality (VR) environment for bio-operator training. Using the virtual environment, the bio-operator is able to control the virtual injection process in the same way they would with the physical haptic micro-robotic cell injection system, while benefiting from the enhanced visualisation capabilities offered by the 3D VR environment. The system is achieved using cost-effective components offering training at much lower cost than using the physical system.