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@PHDTHESIS{Dai:985062,
author = {Dai, Rushi},
othercontributors = {Brell-Cokcan, Sigrid and Wiese, Bettina Simone},
title = {{D}esign and development of gamification as an educational
support system for digital construction : enhancing learning
and exploring the potential of digital twin integration},
school = {Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen},
type = {Dissertation},
address = {Aachen},
publisher = {RWTH Aachen University},
reportid = {RWTH-2024-04418},
pages = {1 Online-Ressource : Illustrationen},
year = {2024},
note = {Veröffentlicht auf dem Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen
University; Dissertation, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische
Hochschule Aachen, 2024},
abstract = {This dissertation explores the design and development of
gamification as an educational support system for digital
construction, with specific focus on the improvement of
students’ learning effectiveness and the integration of
Digital Twin technology within the gamified system. With the
rapid advancements in technologies, many industries have
been transformed and upgraded to the age of digitization via
digital tools and strategies, including the construction
industry to an innovative direction of digital construction.
One of the effective strategies to support this transition
is to educate new professions in the field of digital
construction. However, the current education has revealed
main challenges including lack of innovative teaching
methods in this new discipline, gaps between theoretical
knowledge and practice, difficulties in access to on-site
facilities, insufficient motivation of students in studying
this subject and more.The main objectives of this
dissertation are to propose solutions to the current
challenges in education of digital construction, and to
research innovative technologies and methods for digital
transformation in education. To achieve these objectives,
this dissertation designed gamification methods and
developed its system framework powered by a 3D game engine
– Unreal Engine, bridging the gap between educational
practices and the emerging concepts in digital construction.
In addition, an application called DigitalCons (Digital
Construction) was built as a use case for validation and a
testbed for the integration of cutting-edge digital
technologies within the proposed gamified system. The
research addresses the following questions: 1) What
gamification methods can be applied to promote the learning
experiences and learning effectiveness of students, such as
comprehension of digital technologies in construction,
theoretical knowledge transfer in practical scenarios, and
motivation in learning digital construction? 2) How can a
development framework be designed and structured to
facilitate the development of a flexible and extendable
gamified system? 3) What are the technical challenges in the
integration of innovative technologies like Digital Twin,
and how can the integration enhance the learning
effectiveness in digital construction? 4) What are the
perceptions of its users and the learning outcomes of
students after utilisation of the gamified system regarding
functionalities, user experiences and learning
effectiveness? To study these questions, literature reviews
were done to establish a theoretical foundation for the
gamification concept and to formulate hypotheses for
validation. Then the gamification concept was designed and
prototyped into the game-like application called DigitalCons
powered by Unreal Engine for further testing and evaluation.
In DigitalCons, construction-related contents were
categorised into four sections: Safety, Machinery, IoT, and
Processes, gamified with game elements and mechanics
aligning with game psychology and enhanced by the
integration of Digital Twin technologies. While game
psychology helped to arouse students' enthusiasm for
learning and deepen their memory, Digital Twin provided an
immersive and realistic learning environment representing
the twin of reality. To validate the gamification concept,
DigitalCons was tested and evaluated by its developer, 9
experienced gamers and 30 students in aspects of
functionality, user experience and learning effectiveness.
Different evaluation methods were applied to gather data,
such as ad-hoc testing, profiling tools, questionnaires, and
open discussion. The invited students were divided into two
groups, one learned with a gamified approach as the
experimental group, and one learned with a non-gamified
approach as the control group. The outcomes of both groups
were evaluated and compared in the learning effectiveness of
the two learning methods.The result of this study suggests
effective design methods to gamify learning contents in
Digital Construction. The development of DigitalCons via
Unreal Engine provides an applicable, easy-to-use,
extensible and collaborative framework, which also allows
for easy integration and interfacing with digital
technologies like Digital Twin. The evaluation outcomes of
the gamified system demonstrate a positive impact on
students’ learning effectiveness in knowledge
comprehension and retention, knowledge transfer, and
learning motivation and engagement. The experimental group
performed better in knowledge transfer and gained more
learning motivation and engagement, while the control group
outperformed in knowledge retention. Additionally, positive
attitudes towards the learning methods showed little impact
on the learning outcome in knowledge comprehension and
retention, as well as in knowledge transfer, however, strong
impact on learning motivation and engagement.In conclusion,
the gamified system proposed in this dissertation holds a
great potential in the innovation and transformation of
education in digital construction. Although there is still a
large space for improvement, such as refinement of
gamification techniques, performance optimisation and
determinism issue in Digital Twin simulation, these
limitations should be addressed in future research to fully
expand the possibilities of gamification.},
cin = {211510},
ddc = {710},
cid = {$I:(DE-82)211510_20170101$},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)11},
doi = {10.18154/RWTH-2024-04418},
url = {https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/985062},
}
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