General-Purpose Situational Simulation Environment for Construction Education
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 131, Issue 3
Abstract
The traditional construction education model based on precise well-defined problems and formal definitions is not satisfactorily fulfilling its mission of educating the decision makers of tomorrow. This realization has moved several researchers to explore alternatives where problem solving is carried out in conjunction with the environment, and concepts are embedded in the context promoting learning within the nexus of the activity. Several efforts have been undertaken to develop these environments resulting in a variety of special-purpose situational simulations. However, special-purpose situational simulations exhibit inherent limitations related to their application breadth, flexibility, and promotion of collaborations. These limitations cannot be resolved within the framework of special-purpose learning environments. A general-purpose environment is required to overcome these shortcomings and take full advantage of the situational learning paradigm. This paper describes the conceptual framework and pilot implementation of such an environment called the Virtual Coach.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
AbouRizk, S. (1993). “Stochastic simulations of construction bidding and project management.” Microcomput. Civ. Eng., 8, 343–353.
AbouRizk, S., and Sawhney, A. (1994). “Simulation and gaming in construction engineering education.” Conf., Edmonton, Alta., Canada, American Society for Engineering Education.
Barab, S. A., Hay, K. E., Barnett, M., and Squire, K. (2001). “Constructing virtual worlds: Tracing the historical development of learner practices.” Cogn. Instruct., 19(1), 47–94.
Bertz, M., and Baker, N. C. (1996). “CELL — A vertically integrated learning resource.” Proc., 3rd Congress on Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE, Reston, Va., 348–354.
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., and Duguid, P. (1989). “Situated cognition and the culture of learning.” Educ. Res., 18(1), 32–42.
Chi, M., Bassok, M., Lewis, M., Reimann, P., and Glaser, R. (1989). “Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems.” Cogn. Sci., 13, 145–182.
Chinowsky, P., and Vanegas, J. (1996). “Combining practice and theory in construction education curricula.” Proc., 1996 ASEE Annual Conf., Washington, D.C., American Society for Engineering Education.
Echeverry, D., (1996). “Mulimedia-based instruction of building construction.” Proc., 3rd Congress on Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE, Reston, Va., 972–977.
Fruchter, R. (1997). “The A/E/C virtual atelier: Experience and future directions.” Proc., 4th Congress of Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE, Reston, Va., 395–402.
Halpin, D., and Woodhead, R. (1970). “A computerized construction management game.” Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Jaafari, A., Manivong, K., and Chaaya, M. (2001). “VIRCON: Interactive system for teaching construction management.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 127(1), 66–75.
McCabe, B., Ching, K. S., and Savio, R. (2000). “STRATEGY: A construction simulation environment.” Proc., 6th Construction Congress, Orlando, Fla., ASCE, Reston, Va., 115–120.
Mukherjee, A., and Rojas, E. (2003) “Reasoning about actions and events in situational simulations.” Proc., 2003 Winter Simulation Conference (SIGSIM), New Orleans, Special Interest Group in Simulation of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).
National Science Foundation (NSF). (1995). “Restructuring engineering education: A focus on change.” Rep. of the 1994 NSF Workshop on Engineering Education, Division of Undergraduate Education, Directorate for Education and Human Resources, National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Ndekugri, I., and Lansley, P. (1992). “Role of simulation in construction management.” Build. Res. Inf., 20(2), 109–115.
Pennell, R., Durham, M., Ozog, C., and Spark, A. (1997). “Writing in context: Situated learning on the web.” Proc., 14th Annual ASCILITE Conf., Perth, Western Australia, The Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, 463–469.
Rojas, E., and Mukherjee, A. (2003a). “Data modeling for the virtual coach.” Proc., Int. Workshop on Information Technology in Civil Engineering, ASCE, Reston, Va., 308–317.
Rojas, E., and Mukherjee, A. (2003b). “Modeling the construction management process to support situational simulations.” J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 17(4), 273–280.
Rojas, E., and Mukherjee, A. (2003c). “Visualizing situational simulation information.” Proc., Construction Research Congress (CD-ROM), ASCE, Reston, Va.
Rojas, E., and Mukherjee, A. (2003d). “Implementing situational simulations through distributed databases.” Proc., Construction Research Congress (CD-ROM), ASCE, Reston, Va.
Russell, S. J., and Norvig, P. (2002). Artificial intelligence: A modern approach, 2nd Ed., Prentice–Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Sawhney, A., Mund, A., and Koczenasz, J. (2001). “Internet-based interactive construction management learning system.” J. Constr. Educ., 6(3), 124–138.
Sweet, J. (1999). Legal aspects of architecture, engineering, and the construction process, 6th Ed., Brooks-Cole ITP, New York.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 131 • Issue 3 • March 2005
Pages: 319 - 329
Copyright
© 2004 ASCE.
History
Received: May 5, 2003
Accepted: May 6, 2004
Published online: Mar 1, 2005
Published in print: Mar 2005
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.