Design and Implementation of Virtual Reality Labs for Electromagnetism

• In Event: Learning With Virtual and Augmented Reality: Examining the Theoretical, Technological, and Assessment Factors for Learning

Abstract

Theory
Concepts in electricity and magnetism (E&M) are notoriously difficult for students to learn, especially if students are asked conceptually-focused questions about E&M phenomena (e.g., Maloney et al., 2001). The sources of these difficulties are a lack of familiarity with the phenomena, the principles and relations more generally, and the three-dimensional nature of the problems and concepts that do not translate well to two-dimensional textbooks, worksheets, and computer screens.

Virtual reality (VR) simulations and learning environments can support student learning in many ways, based on the various affordances of the VR technology (e.g., Dede, 2009). One of the affordances is that the immersive nature of VR can facilitate the use of multiple perspectives from which the student can view an object or scene. For EM fields and related phenomena, that are three-dimensional in nature, this multiple-perspective-taking and immersion that VR allows can aid students in better understanding EM fields, charge distributions, charged surfaces, and the behavior of charged particles in these various spaces.

Design & Implementation
This poster will describe a study in which we a) develop VR-based visualizations of EM fields and charged particles, b) integrate these visualizations into a lab sequence, and c) measure student learning of the concepts related to EM phenomena. The study participants are undergraduate engineering majors enrolled in an upper level electromagnetism course at a large Midwestern university. One section of students used the VR-based visualizations during some of their lab sections while the other two sections of students did their normal labs. Each section included approximately 90 students.

The VR-based labs were designed to not only allow students to view the three-dimensional nature of EM fields and surfaces from multiple perspectives, but also allow students to interact with these phenomena in ways that are not possible in non-VR environments. Specifically, students can:
• create a variety of charges of various polarities
• visualize the electric fields from individual static charges or distribution of charges
• visualize the resultant electric field, hence understand the principle of superposition
• visualize the influence of electrical force on various charge configurations.

The VR learning experience was developed so that students can visualize the electric potential, capacitors, electric fields due to sheets of charge, and Gauss’s law. This includes the possibility of creating various charge distributions and visualizing the resultant electric field, encapsulating a point charge in a spherical Gaussian surface and calculating the flux through this specific surface.

Assessment
This poster will discuss the design process for the VR-based EM visualizations and their integration into the curriculum of the undergraduate engineering course. We will also present findings on the pre/post assessment of students' conceptual knowledge of electricity and magnetism (using the CSEM instrument; Maloney et al., 2001) of students in the VR-based condition compared to students that did not use the VR-based visualizations. We will also present findings from interviews with students that participated in the VR labs to understand more about their use of the visualizations and implications for our design decisions.

Authors

• Cynthia M. D'Angelo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Raluca Ilie