2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 199: An Overview of VADERs (Virtual/Augmented-Reality-based Discipline Exploration Rotations)

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

Architectural Engineering and Construction (AE/C) education encounters challenges in cultivating students’ proficiency and sustaining a diverse and inclusive workforce due to a lack of students’ interest and self-efficacy in the early years of their degree. This paper introduces the Virtual/Augmented-Reality-Based-Discipline Exploration Rotations (VADERs) project, aiming to address these issues by incorporating extended reality technology in an educational approach. VADERs is a set of three virtual AE/C educational modules created based on the Model of Domain Learning framework. Over the first two years of the project, VADER-1 and VADER-2 were developed to enhance first- and second-year students’ self-efficacy and retention in AE/C programs. VADER-R, aimed at recruiting high school and community college students into AE/C programs, is under development. VADER-1 and VADER-2 were implemented in 10 courses (405 students) across three institutions in Fall 2023. The impact of VADERs was assessed through reflection surveys guided by Social Cognitive Career Theory, pre- and post-domain knowledge quizzes, and time-stamped click-stream data reflecting student interactions within the virtual environment.

Authors

Mr. Jae Hoon Ma http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6279-1608 Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

JaeHoon Ma is a Ph.D. student in the School of Building Construction at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently working as a research assistant and project coordinator for the VADERs project (NSF #2202290).
Ece Erdogmus Georgia Institute of Technology
Erica Ryherd University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Prof. Heidi A. Diefes-Dux http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3635-1825 University of Nebraska, Lincoln [biography]

Heidi A. Diefes-Dux is a Professor in Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (UNL). She received her B.S. and M.S. in Food Science from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Food Process Engineering from the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University. She was an inaugural faculty member of the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her current role in the College of Engineering at UNL is to lead the disciplinary-based education research initiative, growing the research enterprise and the engineering education research graduate program. Her research focuses on the development, implementation, and assessment of modeling and design activities with authentic engineering contexts; the design and implementation of learning objective-based grading for transparent and fair assessment; and the integration of reflection to develop self-directed learners.
Kyungki Kim University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Prof. Catherine Armwood-Gordon http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8247-5944 Tennessee State University [biography]

Dr. Catherine Armwood is Interim Chair and Associate Professor of Civil and Architectural Engineering at Tennessee State University. She is passionate in Engineering Education and Workforce Development of Underrepresented Minorities. She also conducts research in cementitious materials and structural resilience under extreme loading.

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