Assessment of the efficacy and effectiveness of virtual reality teaching module: A gender-based comparison

The concepts and topics of manufacturing systems design and analysis are usually taught using traditional lecturing, in-class problem solving, and project-based approaches. These concepts are not easy to grasp and can be tedious when taught by traditional methods. This study presents an innovative virtual reality (VR) based approach to teach manufacturing systems concepts. To illustrate the efficacy and effectiveness of VR technology in enhancing students learning concepts, a VR queuing theory teaching module is developed. The efficacy and effectiveness of the VR module are then analyzed for male and female participants to investigate the impact of the VR environment on female engineers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Simulation sickness, system usability, and user experience tools were used to assess the efficacy of the VR module, and the queuing theory quiz, NASA TLX assessment, and post-motivation measures were applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed VR module. Both males and females indicated higher user satisfaction in terms of system usability. Female participants perceived higher user experience than their male counterparts. Both male and female participants experienced similar simulation sickness symptoms throughout the study. The quiz score indicated that students performed well in the conceptual section for both genders. The NASA TLX results suggested that participants required low perceived work effort in regard to performing the tasks in the module. The post motivation results confirmed that the VR module created positive motivation in learning the queueing theory for both male and female students. Overall, the efficacy and effectiveness measures affirm that both male and female participants perceived a similar experience in the developed VR teaching module.