The Effect of Virtual Reality Technology in Cross-Cultural Teaching and Training of Drones

Objectives: With the rapid development of drone technology, drones have been used in various fields such as surveying and mapping, forestry, firefighting, emergency rescue, etc. In the face of a huge talent gap, drones market talents are in short supply. In order to cultivate reserve saving talents for drones, many universities already offer aerial drone survey courses. The traditional teaching mode requires a lot of time, manpower and material costs. In this paper, we take “virtual reality technology” as the core, and propose a “combination of virtual reality” and “combination of online and offline” teaching mode for the experimental course, in order to solve a series of traditional teaching. It also provides a valuable reference experience for the development and reform of other experimental courses. This study uses virtual reality and drone aerial survey technologies to allow students to visit and learn the basic theoretical knowledge of drone aerial survey and learn drone aerial survey technologies to achieve the purpose of the “online & offline” “virtual & reality” course teaching mode. The drone aerial survey experiment course aims to cultivate excellent drone aerial survey talents. Drones aerial survey is a technology that has only been emerging for 4 to 5 years. The traditional teaching is mainly based on the offline mode, and the theoretical course is only based on the teacher teaching theoretical knowledge and demonstrating experimental operation, with fixed teaching content, single method and boring content. In course, if the teacher is inexperienced or inappropriate, it is easy for students to lose interest and initiative in learning. The students’ professional knowledge is limited to superficial theories and basic operations, which cannot meet the course objectives, and due to the scarcity of teachers with operational and teaching experience, the effect of the drone aerial survey course is poor. As drone aerial survey course training is costly, restricted by the venue and many online courses today cannot meet the training needs, and as students come from different cultural backgrounds and living environments, culture becomes an important human-computer interaction issue if the interactive system is to be usable, useful and appeal to a wide range of users. Faced with students from different cultural backgrounds and living environments, the question of how to make drone teaching and training work better as an educational tool is one to ponder. The use of virtual reality technology in the teaching process, through three-dimensional virtual simulation and virtual interactive technology to the course required equipment, scenes, experimental operation process, experimental results for virtual display, real show the entire process of experimental operations. The use of virtual reality technology combined with traditional teaching can not only enrich the teaching content, but also overcome the extreme dependence on traditional experimental teaching equipment and environment. Under the reasonable control of teachers, students can carry out experiments independently, which effectively mobilises students’ learning initiative and increases their learning interest, and also improves students’ ability to relate theory to practice and improve learning efficiency. At the same time, the “virtual & reality” teaching mode can effectively extend the time for students to learn, operate and train, overcoming the traditional teaching mode’s high limitation of time and space, enabling students to deepen their mastery of operations and key aspects, and more effectively cultivate a comprehensive quality of technical personnel. Methods: In this study, 24 students were randomly selected as the control group and 26 students were selected as the experimental group. There were no major differences in the basic information of the two groups, and all of them had initially studied the drone course and had a preliminary understanding of drone knowledge. The control group used the traditional teaching mode, with the teacher teaching knowledge and operation demonstration, while the experimental group used virtual reality technology for teaching. A pre-test will be conducted before the teaching activities to ensure that there is no significant difference in the prior knowledge of the two groups, and a post-test will be administered at the end of the course and a questionnaire on learning interest and learning confidence will be administered. Results: By comparing the test results of the control group with the experimental group and the results of the teaching questionnaire, it can be found that students in the experimental group had higher average test scores than those in the control group, and students in the experimental group had higher levels of classroom concentration, learning initiative and satisfaction with classroom teaching than students in the control group. Students in the control group indicated that the knowledge in the classroom was too boring and they did not pay attention in class, while students in the experimental group indicated that the classroom was more participatory and interesting, and they hoped that more experimental courses could be taught in this way. Conclusions: This study found that traditional teaching courses do not fully meet students’ learning needs, and that practical courses require more hands-on experience. The use of virtual reality technology combined with traditional teaching can be a good solution to this problem and improve students’ learning efficiency.The ‘virtual & reality’ teaching allows students to have an immersive experience, which can effectively increase students’ learning interest and learning confidence. In addition, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. Due to the novelty of virtual reality technology, it remains to be seen whether or not it will have an impact on practical operations and how this can be addressed. More research is needed on how to make the best use of virtual reality in teaching and learning.