Two graduate oceanography courses at Utrecht University introduced a virtual fieldwork experience to replace costly and logistically complex sea expeditions. The Virtual Ship Classroom was developed as an authentic learning environment, enabling students to practice real-world research skills while enhancing engagement, knowledge, and collaboration in preparation for future oceanographic expeditions.

Background information

Fieldwork is a key element of many higher education programs because it offers students hands-on experience while fostering critical thinking, problem solving, and practical skills. Given that fieldwork can be very expensive, time-consuming, and logistically challenging, the researchers in this project developed a virtual oceanography fieldwork experience. This enables students to prepare, execute, analyze and report on an expedition that would otherwise not be feasible.

Aims

The aims of this study are to investigate if the Virtual Ship Classroom serves as an authentic learning environment that reflects real-world oceanographic research practices, and how it impacts students’ learning outcomes and experiences.

Project description

The first two cycles of a design-based research (DBR) study are presented. Before designing the fieldwork, gaps in student knowledge and skills were analyzed and identified and intended learning outcomes were formulated in collaboration with instructors and oceanography experts. The virtual fieldwork was designed as an authentic learning environment with the objective of engaging students to increase their learning experience. The virtual fieldwork was evaluated in two graduate courses for physical oceanography following a mixed-methods approach. Data include interviews (with both students, instructors and teaching assistants), surveys, rubrics, and student notebooks.

Results & Conclusion

The findings from the evaluation indicate that the Virtual Ship Classroom can contribute to preparing students for physical oceanography expeditions in meaningful ways. The students reported high levels of engagement with the learning materials and increased learning gains. They appreciated their growth in terms of content knowledge, real world research planning skills, data analysis, and collaborative problem solving.

Overall, the evaluation shows that the Virtual Ship Classroom contributes positively to learning outcomes and student satisfaction, because the learning was highly student driven and perceived as authentic. The authentic learning framework and principles are recommended in developing student-centered education.

This project will continue in a fUSO, and by creating more narrative scenarios, and the implementation of VR into the fieldwork.

References

• Anderson, T., & Shattuck, J. (2012). Design-Based Research: A Decade of Progress in Education Research? Educational Researcher, 41(1), 16–25. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X11428813
• Cliffe, A. D. (2017). A review of the benefits and drawbacks to virtual field guides in today’s Geoscience higher education environment. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 14(1), 28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0066-x
• Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., & Oliver, R. (2014). Authentic Learning Environments. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. Elen, & M. J. Bishop (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology (pp. 401–412). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5_32
• Kahu, E. R. (2013). Framing student engagement in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 38(5), 758–773. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.598505
• Reeves, T. (2006). Design research from a technology perspective. In Educational Design Research. Routledge.