Virtual field trips in hydrological field laboratories: The potential of virtual reality for conveying hydrological engineering content

With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting contact restrictions, conducting field trips to hydrological research basins became close to impossible. Hydrological field knowledge is an essential part of hydrological education and research. In order to impart this knowledge to students of hydrological engineering subjects in times or situations where on-site exploration is not possible, the VR4Hydro tool was developed. VR4Hydro is a virtual reality platform built from 360° panoramas that allows users to interactively explore the Gersprenz River basin in Germany. The following study seeks to investigate the applicability of performing virtual field trips in the context of hydrological education by evaluating user experience. Sixteen students of the subject engineering hydrology were asked to document their experiences with VR4Hydro using a qualitative approach by answering a series of multiple-choice questions as well as long-answer text questions. The analysis and discussion of the results showed that virtual excursions generally met with great interest among users. The majority rated the virtual tour as a valuable addition to traditional teaching methods. All students found the tool particularly appealing in cases where external circumstances did not allow for a real excursion. The findings of this study show that the application of virtual field trips (VFT) in hydrological engineering can be a valuable supplement to real field trips to improve the interest and learning outcome of students.