Date of Award

Spring 2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering

Program/Concentration

Modeling and Simulation

Committee Director

Frederic D. McKenzie

Committee Member

Yuzhong Shen

Committee Member

Ahmed K. Noor

Committee Member

Gene Hou

Abstract

There has been an increase in the use of virtual reality (VR) technology in the education community since VR is emerging as a potent educational tool that offers students with a rich source of educational material and makes learning exciting and interactive. With a rise of popularity and market expansion in VR technology in the past few years, a variety of consumer VR electronics have boosted educators and researchers’ interest in using these devices for practicing engineering and science laboratory experiments. However, little is known about how such devices may be well-suited for active learning in a laboratory environment. This research aims to address this gap by formulating a utility framework to help educators and decision-makers efficiently select a type of VR device that matches with their design and capability requirements for their virtual laboratory blueprint. Furthermore, a framework use case is demonstrated by not only surveying five types of VR devices ranging from low-immersive to full-immersive along with their capabilities (i.e., hardware specifications, cost, and availability) but also considering the interaction techniques in each VR device based on the desired laboratory task. To validate the framework, a research study is carried out to compare these five VR devices and investigate which device can provide an overall best-fit for a 3D virtual laboratory content that we implemented based on the interaction level, usability and performance effectiveness.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/vxvt-y991

ISBN

9781085618793

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