Enhancing Mining Education through the use of a Scenario-based Virtual Reality Simulation

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has been identified as a means of bridging the gap between theory taught at university and its practical applications in industry. Recent technological advancements in the gaming industry has allowed for the development of low-cost, high performance VR systems. Mining education stands to benefit significantly from these advancements.This thesis focuses on the development of a large-screen, semi-immersive VR simulation which monitors a potential slope failure at an open cut coal mine over the period of a week and its use in a paired-data observational study. The simulation was designed to compress a week of monitoring into a one and a half hour simulation. The observational study was conducted in the UQ course "Mine Management" with fourth year undergraduate mining students. Students, in groups of four, were given a week to complete a written assignment which provided them with relevant information for a hypothetical open cut coal mine, at which a potential slope failure was being monitored.Students were asked to develop a Trigger Action Response Plan (TARP) to manage the potential slope failure using monitoring triggers with appropriate trigger levels. After they had submitted their TARP they were taken through a one and a half hour VR session with the developed simulation which allowed them to explore the virtual mine site and monitor the slope displacement and rate of movement which was provided through an in-game slope monitoring system. This slope monitoring system updated every hour according to the defined timescale. Students were then asked to re-develop or edit their TARP in the VR session and submit it for assessment. The results of the two TARPs provided two data sets which could be analysed using a paired t-test.The results of the paired t-test for the nineteen groups that completed the assessment determined that an absolute difference of 19% in the mean assessment result was observed between the written and VR assignment results. The relative increase in the results from written to VR was calculated to be 32%. As the P-value for the paired ttest was found to be 0.000 (<0.05), the mean difference and relative increase can be considered statistically significant and provide strong evidence for the benefits of using a VR simulation to enhance mining education.ii

On the effectiveness of virtual reality in the education of software engineering

“…Based on the average retention rates of different learning and teaching methods, we can list the methods from best to the worst as follows: teaching others or immediate use of learning, learning by doing, discussion group, demonstration, audio‐visual, reading, and lecture . According to the constructivist learning view, the student learns by interacting with the environment and they must be actively engaged in this process . There are five roles for a student in such an environment as follows : Students learn by interacting with material or equipment given to them. Students learn with hands‐on learning. Students learn by problem‐solving. Students learn by searching information from several resources to answer the questions raised. Students learn to improve the initial solution by interacting with a group of students. …”

“…Based on the average retention rates of different learning and teaching methods, we can list the methods from best to the worst as follows: teaching others or immediate use of learning, learning by doing, discussion group, demonstration, audio-visual, reading, and lecture [21]. According to the constructivist learning view, the student learns by interacting with the environment and they must be actively engaged in this process [18]. There are five roles for a student in such an environment as follows [43]:…”

“…Main components of a VR system are hardware and software. Hardware can be divided into three categories, namely display systems, input devices, and feedback devices . There is a taxonomy based on display type, which is related with the immersion level .…”

“…Examples for VR input devices are Kinect, Leap Motion, and STEM System. There are several game engines to develop the simulation environment such as Unreal Engine, Unity, and OpenSceneGraph . The realism of the VR system is affected by the image quality and the level of immersion.…”

“…feedback devices [18]. There is a taxonomy based on display type, which is related with the immersion level [35].…”