Development and evaluation of a virtual learning tool to enhance comprehension of energy concepts.

This innovative practice full paper presents the development and evaluation of a virtual learning tool. To provide a stimulating environment, a semester-long project is designed (as a part of an introductory Thermodynamics course) that requires students to design a virtual power plant. The project includes a range of tasks that provide students an opportunity to understand various aspects involved in construction of a power plant such as: choosing a geographic location for the power plant based on energy demands, examining economic and social impacts involved in construction of a power plant, and performing design calculations on individual components of the power plant. To aid students’ understanding of the abstract engineering concepts involved in this project, a virtual objects (vObjects) tool is developed that includes animations, videos, and power, efficiency and design calculators. This article explains the tool development process (code and rationale), testing of the tool, tool refinement, and analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of the tool. The vObjects tool is developed using the LabVIEW software from National Instruments. Based on the analysis, the tool is found to improve the conceptual understanding of the topics in the course. The overall objective of this work is to understand the effectiveness of virtual learning environments. Results from the usability study suggest vObjects tool is user friendly and intuitive to use by undergraduate engineering students. Further, this tool can be used or modified for pedagogy of various science or engineering courses from K-12 to college where the use of physical objects is limited.