2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engaging undergraduate students in research offers numerous benefits to students. In this study, we investigate the experience of undergraduate students who take part in a xFlight (Experimental Flight) simulation research project to investigate how much of the student learning is impacted by method of teaching. Six undergraduate students help with conducting the xFlight project. This paper focuses on the benefits of engaging undergraduate research students in this project. The research students helped recruit 30+ undergraduate student participants. The participants fly a pre-determined flight mission while the research students oversee the study. The objective of the xFlight project is to investigate whether prior gaming experience has an impact on how quickly a person can learn to fly an aircraft using a flight simulator. The student population targeted for this study include both male and female freshmen to seniors between the ages of 18-22. Two sets of student groups are recruited for this study. Set#1 has little or no prior gaming experience. Set#2 is composed of students with significant gaming experience. Both groups are given initial training in basic operations and control of an aircraft using a flight simulator. After the initial training, students are asked to fly a specific mission on the simulator, during which participants wear eye-tracking glasses to record their visual attention. Moreover, a five-scale rubric is used to evaluate their flight performance. The eye tracking data are analyzed using iMotions software. Additionally, inter-rater reliability is measured for data generated from four coders who assess the flight performance of the participants using the rubric. Data collected during this study is used to perform statistical analysis. Average flight performance scores of the two groups are calculated and compared in addition to eye tracking metrics such as time spent on each control (dwell time) and saccade counts. The study will help determine whether there are significant differences in how well students fly the flight simulator based on their prior experience with gaming. The six undergraduate research students involved in this study include four freshman, one sophomore and a junior. Their tasks include but are not limited to:
1. Recruit student participants
2. Conduct pre-flight Survey
3. Show participants the flight video
4. Verbally walk participants through the controls
5. Let participants fly the plane for 5 minutes
6. Conduct post flight survey
The value of engaging undergraduate research students in this study is discussed. Using semi structured interviews, their perspectives on performing literature review, going through the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval process, Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) training, recruiting students, conducting experiments, collecting, and compiling data, and performing comparative analyses is discussed. Also, the impact of engaging undergraduate students in research on their resulting career paths is discussed.