Corrosion Prevention and Control Training in an Immersive Virtual Learning Environment

The majority of military education and training has not veered far from the days of chalk and talk instruction. Often with technological breakthroughs comes the proposal of the next revolution in multimedia instruction. Motion pictures to radios to educational television programs have all seemed to come and gone. The next wave of multimedia learning may involve more than a PowerPoint® presentation and lecture. Researchers continue to propose that Virtual Reality (VR) will find its true application and/or market in education and training. The objective of the project was to develop and provide a low-cost, scalable, and portable VR system containing purposely designed and developed immersive Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). The purpose of the research study was to empirically compare the routine classroom instructor-led training and immersive VLE training in terms of learning and long-term retention of basic Corrosion Prevention and Control (CPC) knowledge in U.S. Army soldiers after taking an U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command (AMCOM) Corrosion Program Office (CPO) CPC training course. Usability evaluation of the VR system was also included. The immersive VLEs were a better form of multimedia instruction in terms of learning for basic CPC theories and principles than instructor-led lectures with PowerPoint. In terms of learning there was a statistically significant interaction between instruction type and time, Wilks\u27 Lambda = .97, F(1, 138) = 3.942, p = .049. In terms of long-term retention there was no significant interaction between instruction type and time

Industry Supplied CAD Curriculum Case Study on Passing Certification Exams

Students who successfully pass professional certification exams while in school are often targeted first by industry for internships and entry level positions. Over the last decade, leading industry suppliers of computer-aided design (CAD) software have developed and launched certification exams for many of their product offerings. Some have also created educational curriculum and resources for educators, such as sample exams and training guides. This case study investigates students’ passing rates of two SOLIDWORKS certification exams after utilizing free and openly available educator instructional material in the classroom. The engineering technology students were from Mechanical Engineering Technology and Electrical Engineering Technology degree programs. The Certified SOLIDWORKS Associate (CSWA) exam was administered at the end of a freshman level introduction to graphics course. The Certified SOLIDWORKS Professional Academic (CSWP-Academic) exam was administered at the end of a junior level advanced CAD course. This paper presents a brief description of the curriculum for both courses, including the instructional material and exams. Quantitative and observational outcomes from both courses will also be presented.Keywords: CAD, SOLIDWORKS, certification, engineering technolog