Abstract/Summary

The growing adoption of building information modeling software in the construction industry requires instructors to design and leverage innovative pedagogical interventions. Furthermore, construction instructors must support their students in gaining essential problem-solving skills such as the analysis and evaluation of proposed construction and design solutions. In this study, the research team aimed at designing and developing an educational virtual reality game to support students in evaluating and reviewing design models of residential buildings. Research has illustrated that reviewing designs using traditional methods, such as drawings, can tax a students’ cognitive process. To tackle this issue, the team has developed the Design Review Simulator (DRS), a virtual reality educational simulation game. The learning objectives of the game are to support students in developing evaluation and reviewing skills of mistakes in construction projects through the use of virtual reality. We used a five-phase instructional design framework – A.D.D.I.E. – to analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate the DRS game. Currently, the authors have performed the first three phases of the A.D.D.I.E. process. In the analysis phase, the team evaluated literature, the future users of the games, and defined learning objectives. We then designed and developed the game in the Unity 3D game engine. The model used for this project was an as-built Revit model of a residential townhouse in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area, provided by a local architectural firm specialized in renovations and retrofits. The team and the architects selected this model due to the high presence of modeling mistakes. This paper presents the analysis, design, and development efforts of the DRS in order to support other instructors and designers in developing future virtual reality games for construction education. Therefore, this experience’s contribution provides a direction to future game developers in designing similar educational virtual reality games.