Leveraging VR in the Age of the Metaverse: Opportunities and Challenges in Private Pilot Licence Training
Universal College of Learning (UCOL), New Zealand; with the Institute of the Pacific United
How they used Delve
Aviation education researchers at the Universal College of Learning in New Zealand used Delve to code semi-structured interviews with five Private Pilot Licence trainees, combining grounded theory technique with thematic analysis to identify where medium-fidelity VR helps and where it fails in flight training.
“Thematic analysis was used by researchers in conjunction with grounded theory as an analytic approach. The researcher identified patterns in their data by coding them with the Delve software, which served as the foundation for analysing qualitative data [39].”
- Field
- Aviation training and educational technology; medium-fidelity virtual reality in Private Pilot Licence instruction
- Data
- Semi-structured interviews with five pilot trainees recruited by snowball sampling, all enrolled in New Zealand Private Pilot Licence programmes within the previous two years and having used at least a basic version of Microsoft Flight Simulator as medium-fidelity VR
- Approach
- Interpretivist paradigm with a subjectivist ontology; grounded theory technique with thematic analysis as the analytic approach, coding semi-structured interviews to identify patterns, with the AI summarisation tool Scholarcy used afterwards to verify and triangulate findings
- Data types
- Interviews
Abstract
In the age of the Metaverse, Virtual Reality (VR) training could enhance facilitation of the Aeroplane Private Pilot Licence (PPL) training. Hence, the research objective of this study revolves around the opportunities and challenges faced by pilot trainees while utilising medium-fidelity VR during PPL training. The qualitative research methodology aligned with the ontological perspective that emphasised subjectivism. The epistemological framework has been based on the interpretivism paradigm. This research employed a grounded theory technique and utilised semi-structured interviews as the primary data collection method. The findings derived from thematic analysis suggest that a significant proportion of pilot trainees agree with VR’s efficacy in theoretical instruction, pre-flight aeroplane inspection, and procedure training. However, the trainees shared their isolating experiences and challenges in acquiring specific competencies and issues developing their motor skills while using VR. These findings are anticipated to be utilised to develop VR instructional frameworks that could facilitate future PPL training
Citation
Eswaranathan Ehambaranathan, Shagesheela Murugasu, Stephen O’Connor (2024). Leveraging VR in the Age of the Metaverse: Opportunities and Challenges in Private Pilot Licence Training. Journal of Airline Operations and Aviation Management. https://doi.org/10.69978/jaoam.v3.i2.2