Virtual reality as a didactic resource from the perspective of engineering teachers

Abstract

AbstractThis paper analyzes the assessment of engineering professors of different nationalities and universities regarding the use of virtual reality (VR) technologies in the classroom. In particular, the existence of gaps in these evaluations by ownership (private or public) of the university where each professor teaches is analyzed, both within the complete sample of participants and within the subsets formed when they are differentiated by gender, age, and time of teaching experience. For this purpose, a questionnaire has been designed and validated with 22 inquiries that have been dispersed in six scales, corresponding to six different dimensions that affect the didactic use of VR. The questionnaire has been distributed to a set of 279 university professors from different Engineering schools and countries. The results, which have been analyzed quantitatively, both descriptive and inferential, indicate that engineering teachers give high evaluations to VR as a didactic tool, but show a certain lack of knowledge and specific training regarding its use. Furthermore, there is a gap between private and public universities, where private university professors express overall higher evaluations of VR than public university professors.