Preliminary Development and Assessment of Engineering Judgment through Mixed-Reality Game-Based Learning

Geotechnical engineers work with a complex material. Unlike steel or concrete, soil is heterogeneous, and its properties are difficult to predict. As such, judgment plays a significant role in geotechnical engineering practice and the design process is unavoidably iterative. This WIP starts with geotechnical engineering as the origin for defining engineering judgment, but the emerging theory can service all engineering decision making. The process through which aspiring engineers practice engineering judgment in their education remains a research area in its adolescence. Members of industry posit that experience is essential for competent engineering practice, but traditional engineering education practices provide few opportunities to acquire such experience. The GeoExplorer project is a mixed reality 'mock internship' that allows students to get preliminary experience with field testing through a mixed-reality game-based learning environment. The CPT module of GeoExplorer was designed to both develop and measure gains in engineering judgment. The importance of defining engineering judgment with respect to engineering education standards became clear when designing this module to serve undergraduate engineering classrooms.