Technological advances have been the main driver of enhancing human–computer interaction and interactive simulations have experienced exponential growth in recent years. However, visual and auditory channels are usually the only ones considered for educational simulations even though the sense of touch is also an important one. Touch allows us to recognize and interact with our surroundings. A common way to develop a visuo-haptic simulation in the area of interactive systems is by using a graphic and physics-based engine orchestrated with a haptic rendering framework. However, new solutions, such as professional game engines, have enabled the development of high-quality applications in much shorter time. In this paper, a novel architecture for fast development of interactive visuo-haptic applications in game engines is discussed. To validate the proposed architecture, the Haptic Device Integration for Unity (HaDIU) plugin was implemented. Simulations were implemented to verify the operability of haptic devices. Each scenario was properly modelled and has different haptic objectives. Furthermore, to validate that the usage of this approach provides better visualizations than an existing single purpose application, an experimental study was performed. Results suggest that by using this approach faster development of interactive visuo-haptic simulators can be achieved than using traditional techniques.

With the recent advancements of learning analytics techniques, it is possible to build predictive models of student academic performance at an early stage of a course, using student’s self-regulation learning and affective strategies (SRLAS), and their multiple intelligences (MI). This process can be conducted to determine the most important factors that lead to good academic performance. A quasi-experimental study on 618 undergraduate students was performed to determine student profiles based on these two constructs: MI and SRLAS. After calibrating the students’ profiles, learning analytics techniques were used to study the relationships among the dimensions defined by these constructs and student academic performance using principal component analysis, clustering patterns, and regression and correlation analyses. The results indicate that the logical-mathematical intelligence, intrinsic motivation, and self-regulation have a positive impact on academic performance. In contrast, anxiety and dependence on external motivation have a negative effect on academic performance. A priori knowledge of the characteristics of a student sample and its likely behavior predicted by the models may provide both students and teachers with an early-awareness alert that can help the teachers in designing enhanced proactive and strategic decisions aimed to improve academic performance and reduce dropout rates. From the student side, knowledge about their main academic profile will sharpen their metacognition, which may improve their academic performance.

Education 4.0 demands a flexible combination of digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving in educational settings linked to real-world scenarios. Haptic technology incorporates the sense of touch into a visual simulator to enrich the user’s sensory experience, thus supporting a meaningful learning process. After developing several visuo-haptic simulators, our team identified serious difficulties and important challenges to achieve successful learning environments within the framework of Education 4.0. This paper presents the VIS-HAPT methodology for developing realistic visuo-haptic scenarios to promote the learning of science and physics concepts for engineering students. This methodology consists of four stages that integrate different aspects and processes leading to meaningful learning experiences for students. The different processes that must be carried out through the different stages, the difficulties to overcome and recommendations on how to face them are all described herein. The results are encouraging since a significant decrease (of approximately 40%) in the development and implementation times was obtained as compared with previous efforts. The quality of the visuo-haptic environments was also enhanced. Student perceptions of the benefits of using visuo-haptic simulators to enhance their understanding of physics concepts also improved after using the proposed methodology. The incorporation of haptic technologies in higher education settings will certainly foster better student performance in subsequent real environments related to Industry 4.0.

In this paper, the potential of visuo-haptic simulators to help engineering students to understand the nature of electric forces between different electric charge distributions is addressed. Three visuo-haptic simulators were designed to perceive the attractive–repulsive behavior as well as the dependence on distance of electrical forces for: (a) point charge, (b) line charge, and (c) plane charge. Design elements were incorporated to improve the 3D perception of the simulators. A sample of N = 111 engineering students practiced with the simulators: 87 enrolled in an Electricity and Magnetism course and 24 enrolled in a more advanced Electromagnetic Fields course. Pre-test and Post-test were applied before and after working with the simulators and average learning gains were obtained. t-tests were performed to determine the statistical significance of the results. Significant learning gains were obtained for the comprehension of the force dependence in the case of line charge and plane charge, but not for the point charge, due to the fact that most students started with very high Pre-test scores in this last case. These results suggest that the use of visuo-haptic simulators may help students to better identify the dependence of electric forces on distance. It was also observed that the potential effect of improving the recognition of electric interactions was higher among students with lower previous familiarity with these topics, as compared to more advanced students. Through exit surveys, it was found that the students liked very much the haptic activity and that it sparked their interest in learning new physical concepts.

Using the Intermediate Value Theorem we demonstrate the rules of Trapeze and Simpson's. Demonstrations with this approach and its generalization to new formulas are less laborious than those resulting from methods such as polynomial interpolation or Gaussian quadrature. In addition, we extend the theory of approximate integration by finding new approximate integration formulas. The methodology we used to obtain this generalization was to use the definition of the integral defined by Riemann sums. Each Riemann sum provides an approximation of the result of an integral. With the help of the Intermediate Value Theorem and a detailed analysis of the Middle Point, Trapezoidal and Simpson Rules we note that these rules of numerical integration are Riemann sums. The results we obtain with this analysis allowed us to generalize each of the rules mentioned above and obtain new rules of approximation of integrals. Since each of the rules we obtained uses a point in the interval we have called them according to the point of the interval we take. In conclusion we can say that the method developed here allows us to give new formulas of numerical integration and generalizes those that already exist.

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents the implementation of a scenario posed to freshman engineering students taking an Introductory Physics short course related to Kepler’s Laws for planetary motion. The objective is to guide them to structure a coherent explanation for this scenario. The above is part of the realization of a new educational Tec21 model that Tecnologico de Monterrey has started, where the whole curriculum is focused on challenge-based learning. The emphasis is given to the development of student competencies when real-life situations are faced, in contrast to traditional lecture-based programs. In order to evaluate the student achievement of this competence, a final exam was applied including both standard end-of-the-chapter problems and questions that required higher argumentative thinking levels. The latter was aimed to assess the reasoning followed by students when prompted to analyze different situations from an initial standard context. For a sample of 319 students, it was found that students overall got grades about 20% smaller in the argumentative questions, as compared to the knowledge questions. This can be explained in part due to the fact that most students are only beginning to develop such higher level reasoning and thinking competencies. These results suggest the need to design learning strategies to reinforce the students’ reasoning processes.