DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF VIRTUAL LAB FOR MEASUREMENT AND CONTROL OF OCCUPATIONAL RISK FACTORS

Involving university students in solving practical problems is an important component of their studies to help them gain practical experience and skills that can be used in their future career. The laboratory experience represents one of the few hands-on experiences in engineering education. This experience serves to reinforce theoretical concepts discussed in engineering courses and provides an experiential learning process. On the other side, students express that some of deficiencies of a laboratory experience are related to fear from damage of expensive equipment and lack of familiarity with the measurement methods. Interactive software could potentially address some of above mentioned the deficiencies and improve the students learning experience and performance. The purpose of this paper is to present development, implementation and results of learning effectiveness measurement of virtual laboratory for measurement and control of occupational risk factors. Virtual lab is intended as support tool for engineering students undertaking courses related to monitoring, evaluation and control of occupational environment on faculties at Technical University in Zvolen.