HR4RS stamp
Mentoring for Euriclea research
Alba Junquera
Alejandro Álvarez Marín has been awarded the Best Doctoral Thesis of the 2021/2023 call for proposals from the Spanish Chapter of Education of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers). His thesis is entitled “Technological Acceptance of Augmented Reality in the Training of Engineers in Higher Education”. The IEEE is a globally recognized organization dedicated to the advancement of technology in various disciplines.
Dr. Álvarez Marín has developed his thesis under the supervision of Professors Ángel Velázquez Iturbide and Maximiliano Paredes Velasco, both from the Department of Computer Science and Statistics at the Rey Juan Carlos University.
The idea for this work arose from the recent doctor's interest in incorporating augmented reality into teaching, and thus collaborating in the training of future engineers. "This international recognition is very important, as it crowns several years of work and represents a significant contribution to the incorporation of new technologies in the educational field, especially in developing countries such as Chile," explains the award winner.
The study was divided into two parts, with the students involved being engineering students from the University of La Serena (Chile). The first study was conducted in an online laboratory with 173 participants and showed that the use of AR positively affected learning. The second study took place in a face-to-face laboratory with 190 participants. The results revealed that this technology does not directly affect the attitude towards use, but rather impacts people through perceived usefulness, which can be described as the degree to which their work performance stands out.
The results were also positive regarding the use of augmented reality in practice. For example, it was observed that the application allows complex calculations to be simulated in real time. When designing the app, the quality of the information selected to enable its development was important. This technology was highly accepted by students and, according to teachers, helps them to be more motivated.
To incorporate augmented reality, an interactive application was developed to help engineering students learn about electrical circuits. This type of technology combines virtual elements with reality, and allows students to practice with different elements such as, for example, electrical circuits in series or parallel. The application calculates the intensity of the current that passes through the electrical circuit, indicating it with colors from gray to red.
Personal career
Alejandro Álvarez-Marín is an Industrial Engineer from the University of La Serena (Chile) and a graduate of the Master's program in Information Technologies from the Federico Santa María Technical University in Chile. He holds a PhD in Information and Communication Technologies from the Rey Juan Carlos University and is currently an associate professor at the University of La Serena, in the Department of Industrial Engineering.
