Achievements of engineering students on a fluid mechanics course in relation to the use of illustrative interactive simulations

Among other skills, a capacity for abstraction and good spatial awareness are needed to succeed in physics courses. According to the prevailing low percentages of passed students on these courses, a great proportion of those students are likely to lack these skills. Our working hypothesis is that simulations could help engineering students visualize physical phenomena and thereby gain a better understanding of physical theoretical concepts and achieve higher grades. Two groups of students (n(1) = 40 and n(2) = 43) took the same fluid mechanics course at an engineering school. Both groups took the same end-of-course examination, but only group 1 was simulation-taught. For that purpose, 15 original simulations were created with GeoGebra software. Simulation-taught students completed a questionnaire on the interest of using simulations to teach fluid mechanics. Simulations designed in this work covered all the concepts taught on the course and overcame criticisms made on previous simulations also created to teach fluid mechanics. At the examination, the average grade and the percentage of passed students were higher in group 1 than in group 2. When surveyed, group 1 students declared that they enjoyed interacting with the simulations and considered them to be a good complement to the theoretical explanations because simulations helped them revise previously explained concepts. Simulations assisted students with difficulties to visualize and understand physical theoretical concepts but still students performed poorly on the examination. Additional strategies need to be adopted in order to help students develop the skills required to succeed in physics courses.