Using Platform Virtualisation to Teach System Architectures in Undergraduate Computer Science–An Evaluation of Student Learning Experiences

This paper describes a learning design intervention conducted by the researchers with a group of undergraduate Business Computing students studying operating systems. The purpose of the study was to attempt to enhance the learning experience of students on the practical / architectures aspect of their operating systems curriculum. Machine / platform virtualisation was used to provide a more realistic laboratory environment for the students; one in which they could interact with the machine with full ‘administrator’ privileges in an unrestricted manner. In contrast to other studies on the use of virtualisation in the classroom, the authors focus on the student learning experience, and not on the instructor or laboratory supervisors’ perspective on using virtualisation tools. To that end, feedback provided by the students on their learning experience with the virtualisation tool is presented. In addition, a comparison is made with feedback data from situations where no virtualisation was used. The data suggests that virtualisation had a positive impact on the learning experiences of those who participated in the study. The authors also reflect on the notion of ‘productive failure’ and posit that virtualisation may have a pivotal role to play in a pedagogy that facilitates the co-existence of scaffolded learning and (unscaffolded) productive failure.