Impact of Virtual Reality on the Visualization of Partial Derivatives in a Multivariable Calculus Class
Multivariable calculus is one of the core subjects which engineering students study at university. Students may end up memorizing formulae in multivariable calculus due to the lack of ability in visualizing 3D surfaces, and hence not gain much intuition for the subject. We developed an in-house virt...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2020-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
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| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9045957/ |
| _version_ | 1818566721640857600 |
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| author | Keegan Kang Sergey Kushnarev Wong Wei Pin Omar Ortiz Jacob Chen Shihang |
| author_facet | Keegan Kang Sergey Kushnarev Wong Wei Pin Omar Ortiz Jacob Chen Shihang |
| author_sort | Keegan Kang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Multivariable calculus is one of the core subjects which engineering students study at university. Students may end up memorizing formulae in multivariable calculus due to the lack of ability in visualizing 3D surfaces, and hence not gain much intuition for the subject. We developed an in-house virtual reality (VR) application with the intention for students to visualize concepts in Multivariable Calculus. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the VR application (which we term as the treatment), we performed a blinded randomized controlled trial with n = 312 students, where we divided them into a control group of n<sub>CO</sub> = 187 students and treatment group of n<sub>TR</sub> = 125 students. We gave both groups of students a test immediately after the treatment, as well as asking them to fill in anonymous survey questions using a Likert scale. Our findings show that students perform worse on some questions after using the VR application, and for some other questions students have similar performance to the treatment group. We hypothesize some reasons why this is so, opening the door for future research. We also give recommendations for future developers of VR applications. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T01:57:14Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d4ba4e1f2c9e45939fe84c98f475941e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T01:57:14Z |
| publishDate | 2020-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-d4ba4e1f2c9e45939fe84c98f475941e2022-12-21T23:21:08ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362020-01-018589405894710.1109/ACCESS.2020.29829729045957Impact of Virtual Reality on the Visualization of Partial Derivatives in a Multivariable Calculus ClassKeegan Kang0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8689-2764Sergey Kushnarev1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2444-9331Wong Wei Pin2Omar Ortiz3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1593-5832Jacob Chen Shihang4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9592-8201Science, Maths, and Technology (SMT) Cluster, Singapore University of Technology and Design, SingaporeScience, Maths, and Technology (SMT) Cluster, Singapore University of Technology and Design, SingaporeScience, Maths, and Technology (SMT) Cluster, Singapore University of Technology and Design, SingaporeScience, Maths, and Technology (SMT) Cluster, Singapore University of Technology and Design, SingaporeScience, Maths, and Technology (SMT) Cluster, Singapore University of Technology and Design, SingaporeMultivariable calculus is one of the core subjects which engineering students study at university. Students may end up memorizing formulae in multivariable calculus due to the lack of ability in visualizing 3D surfaces, and hence not gain much intuition for the subject. We developed an in-house virtual reality (VR) application with the intention for students to visualize concepts in Multivariable Calculus. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the VR application (which we term as the treatment), we performed a blinded randomized controlled trial with n = 312 students, where we divided them into a control group of n<sub>CO</sub> = 187 students and treatment group of n<sub>TR</sub> = 125 students. We gave both groups of students a test immediately after the treatment, as well as asking them to fill in anonymous survey questions using a Likert scale. Our findings show that students perform worse on some questions after using the VR application, and for some other questions students have similar performance to the treatment group. We hypothesize some reasons why this is so, opening the door for future research. We also give recommendations for future developers of VR applications.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9045957/Educationinterdisciplinarymultivariable calculussmart classroomvirtual reality |
| spellingShingle | Keegan Kang Sergey Kushnarev Wong Wei Pin Omar Ortiz Jacob Chen Shihang Impact of Virtual Reality on the Visualization of Partial Derivatives in a Multivariable Calculus Class IEEE Access Education interdisciplinary multivariable calculus smart classroom virtual reality |
| title | Impact of Virtual Reality on the Visualization of Partial Derivatives in a Multivariable Calculus Class |
| title_full | Impact of Virtual Reality on the Visualization of Partial Derivatives in a Multivariable Calculus Class |
| title_fullStr | Impact of Virtual Reality on the Visualization of Partial Derivatives in a Multivariable Calculus Class |
| title_full_unstemmed | Impact of Virtual Reality on the Visualization of Partial Derivatives in a Multivariable Calculus Class |
| title_short | Impact of Virtual Reality on the Visualization of Partial Derivatives in a Multivariable Calculus Class |
| title_sort | impact of virtual reality on the visualization of partial derivatives in a multivariable calculus class |
| topic | Education interdisciplinary multivariable calculus smart classroom virtual reality |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9045957/ |
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