EDUCATIONAL SIMULATION IN PRACTICE : A TEACHING EXPERIENCE USING A FLIGHT SIMULATOR

The use of appropriate Educatonal Simulaton systems (sofware and hardware for learning purposes) may contribute to the applicaton of the “Learning by Doing” (LbD) paradigm in classroom, thus helping the students to assimilate the theoretcal concepts of a subject and acquire certain pre-defned competencies in a more didactcal way. The main objectve of this work is to conduct a teaching experience using a fight simulaton environment so that the students of Aeronautcal Management degree can assume the role of an aircraf pilot, in order to allow the students understanding the basic processes of the air navigaton and observe how the new technologies can transform and improve these processes. This is especially helpful in classroom to teach the contents of the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) programme, a European project that introduces a new Air Trafc Management (ATM) paradigm based on several relevant technological and procedural changes that will afect the entre air transportaton system in the short and medium term. During and afer the executon of several actvites with a fight simulator in the classroom, both the performance and satsfacton level of the students regarding the teaching experience have been assessed through four diferent assessment methods, i.e., objectve test, executon test, observaton techniques and attude-opinion survey.


INTRODUCTION
Educatonal Simulaton (ES) is a term that refers to a variety of selectvely representatonal and interactve environments that can represent or imitate the behaviour of any real system or phenomenon (either physical or social) at the tme that provides with an adequate framework to perform highly efectve learning experiences.The main goal of an ES is to promote the learning by discovery and to enhance the skills involved in the study of a certain system/phenomenon of interest.ES provides to students with the opportunity to interact, refect and learn, so, they actvely partcipate in the educatonal process (Aldrich, 2005;Valverde, 2010).
According to Aldrich (2005), the success of any educatonal experience through simulatons depends on the proper confguraton of the following three elements: the Simulaton component, the Pedagogical component and the Game component.See Fig. 1.

Figure 1. Educatonal Simulaton components
With regards to the Simulaton component, it allows recreatng and representng the real world in diferent circumstances and with diferent levels of abstracton and realism.More precisely, the term Simulaton in this paper refers to the "process of designing a model of a real system and carry out experiences with it, with the purpose of understand the system behaviour and evaluate new strategies -within the limits imposed by a criterion or a set of them-for the operaton of the system."(Shannon & Johannes, 1976).Some of the main features of any type of simulaton are: • Useful for making decisions.
• Enables to evaluate and/or predict potental future solutons in today's present.
• Enables to optmize the system behaviour (if the system can be modifed, e.g., a factory plant).
• Ofers a safe and economical method for training operators.
• Enables to explore situatons where actual experimentaton might be dangerous, problematc, expensive or directly impossible.
Therefore, the Simulaton component in a learning experience allows taking people to a tme or place that they are unable or unlikely to experience directly, thus encouraging the learning within artfcial situatons that can be fully adapted to enhance the learning experience.In additon, the above features can be usually complemented with the capability of the simulators to represent and connect huge amounts of informaton through multmedia, such as high-defniton video and high-fdelity surrounding sound (Alessi & Trollip, 1991;Gibbons & Fairweather, 1998), which altogether add an extra value to the ES and makes the learning experience more atractve to the students.
Regarding the Pedagogical component, one important feature of an ES experience is the opportunity to apply the Learning by Doing (LbD) concept in classroom.Note that according to Martnez (2003), "It is a misconcepton that people learn by listening or reading and validate your knowledge through an examinaton (where his memory is measured but never his understanding).People learn by doing, making mistakes and refectng on how to solve problems, usually with the help of someone more experienced".
Within the European Higher Educaton Area (EHEA) paradigm the university students not only learn knowledge in classroom, they must also acquire the general competencies that they will need when transferred to the labour market afer completng their studies (EHEA, 1999).In this context, the term competency means, as defned by Echevarría (2001), the ability to discriminate the informaton that is important to cope with a certain situaton/problem and the ability to use this informaton to face with it.Note that the concept of competency is sometmes referred as skill in the Anglo-Saxon context (Bonsón, 2009); in this paper the word skill is used with the meaning of methodological capability to apply the technical knowledge to specifc real situatons.In this sense, who possesses professional competency is who has the necessary knowledge, skills and attudes to exercise their own work, to solve problems creatvely and with independency, and that is able to contribute to their work environment and work organizaton (Lasnier, 2000;Biggs, 2005;Tardif, 2006).Therefore, since the development and assessment of competencies should be performed in realistc environments (Lussier & Allaire, 2004;Airasian, 2001), the ES can contribute (through a LbD approach) to the design of new actvites that guide to the students towards the improvement of their professional competencies as required for their expected future positons.
Finally, the Game component of an ES experience motvates the student during the learning process through amusing actvites that indirectly provide benefts.Note that in a game situaton the player engages in a lose/win situaton that requires the practce of knowledge, skills and techniques (i.e., competencies) that are either already acquired or in the process of being acquired.Practce is said to facilitate knowledge acquisiton (Biggs & Moore, 1993).
In this paper an ES case study is introduced in which a teaching experience has been performed based on the use of a fight simulator.The targets of this experience have been the students of Bachelor in Aeronautcal Management, within the subject of Technologies and Procedures for Air Trafc Control and Navigaton (note, however, that the same or similar exercises can be adapted to other felds of study, e.g., Aeronautcal Engineering).One of the difcultes of this subject is that it introduces several new Air Trafc Management (ATM) concepts that are currently under development in the context of the Single European Sky (SESAR Consortum, 2007) and that are difcult for the students to understand in deep only from the point of view of theoretcal explanatons.For instance, the SESAR ATM paradigm requires the use of 4D trajectories, i.e., precise executon of a fight trajectory in the three dimensions and tme.The students should note during the course that the precise 4D navigaton is not afordable in practce for humans (i.e., it requires high levels of automaton in all the control and navigaton processes), and the best way to allow them observing that fact is through a practcal fight actvity (i.e., learning by doing) in which they adopt the role of a pilot.Afer the experience, the students have been questoned with a knowledge evaluaton exam and a satsfacton survey requestng their opinion.
The paper is structured as follows.Secton 2 outlines the design process of the teaching experience and actvites proposed to the students taking into account the competencies that the student should acquire and the relatonship with the contents of the subject.In additon, the last subsecton of the secton 2 shows how the teaching experience has been executed and assessed, whereas Secton 3 explains the results obtained afer the assessment.Finally, Secton 4 reads the conclusions.

PLANNING AND DESIGN OF A TEACHING EXPERIENCE THAT USE A FLIGHT SIMULATOR
The planning and design of the teaching experience have been divided in the defniton of objectves, methodology applied and assessment methods.

Defniton of the objectves
The main goal of the teaching experience proposed here is to guide the students in the process of acquiring a set of specifc and transversal competencies that have been previously defned in the context of the subject "Technologies and Procedures for Air Trafc Control and Navigaton", a subject in which the students are introduced to the current and future technologies and procedures used in aviaton.Some of the contents of this subject are difcult to be understood in deep only through theoretcal explanatons, e.g., how the students can understand the difcultes of performing a precise 4D navigaton if they have not experienced the difcultes of the -much more easier-2D and 3D navigaton?Therefore, the purpose of the learning actvites proposed in this paper is to allow the students to play the role of a pilot by means of a fight simulator, so they can understand the basic principles of the air navigaton, experience the most common tasks performed by pilots and to observe how the new technologies can facilitate and transform such processes.
Some of the pursued competencies that the students should acquire in the context of the subject (specifcally related to the Navigaton sub-topic of the subject) have been identfed in Table 1, together with the identfcaton of the specifc objectves related to each of the competencies that the students should be able to perform afer the teaching experience.The descripton of these specifc performance objectves can be found in Table 2.

O1
The student knows the concepts and complexites related to the control and navigaton of an aircraf during a fight

O2
The student has enhanced interest for the contents of the subject

O3
The student knows the diferent types of instrumentaton on-board to command an aircraf

O4
The student have basic abilites for the commanding and navigaton of an aircraf

O5
The student is able to have enhanced empathy towards the pilots and knows the feelings related to fying

O6
The student understand the tasks required for the commanding and navigaton of an aircraf as a partcular process within the complex air transportaton system and thus is able of evaluatng the impact of any technological or procedural change that may improve or worsen the command and navigaton of an aircraf

O7
The student is able to perform critcal thinking with regards aeronautcal technologies and procedures

O8
The student knows the historical evoluton of the technologies and procedures used in the commanding and navigaton of aircraf and is able to evaluate their impact in the fight processes

O9
The student can manipulate the diferent technologies and instrumentaton on-board and can follow basic fight procedures

O10
The student is able to perform critcal thinking with regards aeronautcal technologies and procedures

Objectve identfer Specifc performance objectves O11
The student is able of adaptng rapidly to a new environment (in this case, a cockpit) while processes a lot of informaton and puts in practce his/her psychomotor coordinaton skills

O12
The student is able to have enhanced empathy towards the actors of any working positon (in this case, the pilot's working positon)

O13
The student has good knowledge about the context in which the decision-making is performed (in this case, the knowledge of C1, C2, C3 and C4)

O14
The student is able to identfy how a decision may afect to, or may be afected by, diferent aspects of the same problem (in this case, how a decision may afect to or may be afected by the processes conducted by the pilot or the navigaton systems of an aircraf)

O15
The student is able to feel self-confdent during the decision making process and also is able to have enhanced empathy towards the main afected actors (in this case, the pilots) Table 2. Performance objectves of the teaching experience

Methodology
To reach the pursued goals, a set of actvites have been designed for the students, following the approach proposed by (Boix & Armisen, 2008) and summarized in Figure 2, in which the main characters, teachers and students, must interact with each other so that the second can learn and acquire the due competencies necessary to become a good professional.

Figure 2. Methodology for the design of learning actvites oriented to competencies
These learning actvites have included the usage of an ES platorm (i.e., a fight simulator) so the students can acquire the pursued competencies by means of a LbD approach.Therefore, the three ES components (i.e., Pedagogical, Game and Simulaton) have been set in the following three sequental steps for the efectve performance of the teaching experience.

Pedagogical component
First, the relatonship between the contents of the subject and the specifc performance objectves and competencies has been established (i.e., Pedagogical component of ES).Table 3 identfes some of the contents of the subject of Technologies and Procedures for Air Trafc Control and Navigaton and puts them in relaton with the competencies and objectves pursued.These objectves have been sorted in the table atending to the component (i.e., knowledge, skills or attudes) of the related competencies.

Game component
Afer the defniton of the Pedagogical component, the actvites to be executed by the students in classroom have been developed (i.e., Game component of ES).The idea is to design some exercises that make use of a fight simulator so that the students can adopt the role of a pilot and thus assimilate in practce the theoretcal concepts seen in class and improve their skills while at the same tme they can enjoy of the learning process, thus generatng positve attudes towards the subject and the concepts learnt.Atending to the Pedagogical component stated in Table 3, i.e., competencies to be acquired and their relaton with the subject's contents, the following actvites have been designed: • Pilotng experience.Initally, during the frst contact with the fight simulator, the actvites must be driven to allow the students to get used to the controls and manoeuvrability of the aircraf when it is airborne.The frst actvity requires the student fying straight while maintaining constant alttude and also maintaining constant other certain fight parameters.Later, when the students can stabilize the aircraf, they can start to manoeuvre the aircraf, performing some controlled turns and changing the fight level by ascending and descending the aircraf with a controlled vertcal speed.These exercises are not trivial for beginners and they present diferent levels of difculty depending on the aircraf type used (in general, the bigger the aircraf the more difcult its stabilizaton during the fight).
• Air navigaton, from theory to practce.This actvity aims at showing the historical evoluton of the air navigaton, a problem that involves two unknowns, i.e., which is the current positon of the aircraf and how to reach a desired destnaton in the most optmal way possible.In the frst place, the students are requested to use charts and visual references to know where they are while stll commanding the airborne aircraf (as pilots traditonally did in the past and stll sometmes do).Later they are introduced to the radio-navigaton instruments available on-board: ADF (Automatc Directon Finder), which makes use of the ground navigaton aid called NDB (Non Directonal Beacon), and VOR/DME (Very High Frequency Omnidirectonal Range/Distance Measure Equipment); see Martnez and Belda (2000).Such exercise allows the students to have a more practcal view of the navigaton concepts seen in the theoretcal classes, and also having a beter "in situ" understanding of how these technologies actually help the pilots in their tasks, specially during severe climatologic conditons (e.g., dense fog or severe thunderstorm, among others), which are also introduced in the exercises.
• Modern technologies for fight control and navigaton.Once the students have understood (and lived) the difcultes related to the control and navigaton of an aircraf, they are introduced to the most modern technologies developed to aid pilots in those complex tasks.In partcular, they are able to manage a navigatonal system that use Global Navigaton Satellite Systems technologies (i.e., GNSS, which include GPS, Galileo and GLONASS satellite constellatons), that combined with the radionavigaton and inertal systems altogether provide to the pilots with higher accuracy of the fight tracking informaton, with more interdependency with respect to the ground radio-navigaton aids and with an improved displaying of the informaton and pilot-system interacton.Finally, the students are able to actvate and confgure diferent types of autopilots, thus observing how easy it turns the executon of the same tasks that they previously did manually with difcultes in the above actvites (note that some of the current autopilots are able to land an aircraf with very litle/almost null interventon of the pilot).Afer that, the students are more sensitve to understand the complexity and value of the incoming 4D navigaton systems, which are currently being under development introducing even higher levels of automaton to enable a future air trafc management system (i.e., SESAR) which aims at being more precise, safer and efcient than the current one.
Table 4 shows the relatonship among the actvites and each of the contents and objectves related.Note that the three actvites designed are related directly or indirectly with all the subject contents and thus will all the performance objectves.It occurs because all these contents are unavoidably present during the three fight simulaton actvites.However, the sequence order of these actvites allows introducing more subject contents and extra milestones difculty in a progressive way, and untl all the subject contents are fully -and consciously-managed by the students.

Simulator component
As a third step, the components to install a functonal fight simulator have been chosen and confgured (i.e., Simulator component of ES).Note that the diversity of sofware and hardware components available nowadays to perform a fight simulaton for training purposes is huge (Aguado & Ruiz, 2013) and that many diferent components have been designed to set up diferent kind of Flight Simulaton Training Devices (FSTDs) in order to provide to the users with diferent functonalites, qualites and with diferent levels of realism (EASA, 2008).Thus, the selecton of the most appropriate combinaton of sofware and hardware for the purposes of the teaching experience must take into account the actual needs to perform the actvites in the classroom.
For instance, some of the FSTDs are used to train pilots (civilian and military) in the commanding of diferent kinds of aircraf under diferent circumstances, thus requiring sofware and hardware able to represent the aircraf dynamics and the boundary conditons of real operatons with maximum realism (Sánchez, 2012).In such cases, it might be recommendable to use a Full Flight Simulator (FSS), which is a perfect replica of a certain aircraf cockpit that includes full realistc moton and maximum quality and realism in the sound and video recreated.Of course the price and the complexity of both the sofware and the hardware is very high as well as the difculty to operate the fights, which altogether suppose a level of realism that must be considered "excessive" for the purposes of this teaching experience.
Nonetheless, since the target of the experience is inducing the students to feel like walking in the pilot's shoes, the appropriate fight simulator must stll include an acceptable level of realism for the representaton of the fight dynamics under diferent weather conditons and also include a minimum cockpit representaton to allow the practce of the most common procedural aspects (and for which a maximum level of realism in the simulatons is not required).This kind of fight simulator is referred in EASA ( 2008) as a Basic Instrument Training Device (BITD), which are much more cheaper than FSSs, easier to set up and also easier to command, thus being ideal for the purposes of this teaching experience.
Furthermore, there are others requirements that are also important to design and set up the fight simulator platorm.In partcular, the system must be useful for diferent purposes, including (but not limited to) the teaching experience proposed that should allow the users reaching the learning goals through the experimentaton of the role of a pilot, it must be efcient, meaning that it should allow the users reaching the goals defned and the role experimentaton of a pilot with the minimum (economic) resources, it must be easy to use and ergonomic in order to allow a fast learning curve for its usage, and it must have a reasonable cost (including installaton) with regards to the academic objectves pursued.Finally, the system must be reliable, i.e., the probability of failure or error must be the lowest possible; robust, so it can stand the test of the tme and the usage by diferent users (in partcular, students); and polyvalent, in order to can be used for diferent kind of teaching and research actvites.
Afer a comprehensive analysis of the market optons, and taken into account all the above requirements, the sofware chosen to perform the fight simulatons has been the Microsof Flight Simulator X, whereas the hardware components have been a medium-power computer (Intel i5 CPU with 4GB of RAM and with a dedicated graphical card featuring HDMI out), a 24 inches high-resoluton fat screen, and the specifc fight simulator component "Saitek Pro Flight System", which is composed by a yoke and throtles that are robust, ergonomic, easy-to-install and present a good quality-price relatonship.Rudder pedals have not been found to be necessary for the purpose of this teaching experience, although their introducton could be considered to increase the realism during the practce of the fight exercises.See Figure 3.

Assessment methods for the teaching experience
The evaluaton of competencies requires the alignment and combinaton of diferent types of assessment methods, due to the diferent nature of the components that compose the competencies, i.e., knowledge, skills and attudes (Yániz & Villardón, 2006;McDonald, Boud, Francis & Ginczi, 2000).This approach is ofen referred as Authentc Assessment (De Miguel, 2005;Herrington & Herrington, 1998).In order to evaluate this teaching experience and the degree of achievement of the goals pursued (Tables 1 and 2), four diferent assessment methods have been considered: an objectve test of knowledge, an executon test, observaton techniques, and an attude and opinion survey.Each assessment method is further explained in the following subsectons, and Table 5 shows which of the objectves have been evaluated with each of the assessment methods.

Objectve test
A short objectve test has been prepared and flled by the students in order to evaluate whether they have assimilated and learnt the concepts explained during the fight simulaton actvity, i.e., to evaluate the knowledge component of competencies C1, C2, C3, C4 and C6 (also the skills component of C6 is evaluated).
The test is a multple-choice test with fve questons and four possible answers each (only one is correct).The test can be seen found in the following table 6.

Queston Statement 1
The fight basic instruments which provide alttude indicaton and heading to the pilot, are respectvely: a.

2
What does Air Navigaton mean?a.The science and technology that aims to determine the height of an airplane relatve to the ground and maintain exactly the desired route.b.The science and technology that aims to determine the positon of an aircraf relatve to the surface of the earth and accurately maintaining the desired path.c.The science and technology that aims to determine the positon of an airplane.d.The science and technology that aims to keep exactly the desired route of an airplane relatve to the surface of the earth.

3
Two of the some radio navigaton aids that provide informaton to the pilots for carrying out a safe fight under adverse meteorological conditons (fog, thunderstorms, blizzard, etc.)

4
What system will allow to airplanes to being totally independent from the ground statons?a. GPS navigaton system.b.Galileo navigaton system.c.GLONASS navigaton system.d.All the above.

5
A satellite-based navigaton system will allows… a. Airspace "optmizaton".b.Cost reducton.c.Reduced fight tme.d.All the above.In order to asses the efectveness of the teaching experience to enhance the knowledge of the students the test has been requested to the students six weeks afer the fight simulaton experience without previous notfcaton (the test has been used to assess the teaching experience only, thus it did not count to pass the course).

Executon test
The executon test has been prepared with a set of milestones to be accomplished by the students during the fight simulaton as a way to assess the skill component of the competencies C2, C4 and C5, and also the knowledge component of the competencies C1, C3 and C6.The fight instructor (i.e., the teacher) has been guiding and assessing the correct achievement of the milestones during the executon of the actvites seen in Table 4.In additon, the fight instructor has been giving the necessary informaton at each precise moment of the actvity, in order to facilitate to the students interiorizing the knowledge, skills and techniques, and attudes pursued.See Fig. 4.
The fight simulaton actvites have been performed with two students per machine, one of the students of each group has been commanding and navigatng the aircraf for a while, whereas the other has been observing and helping as a co-pilot (they have exchanged positons during the actvity).

Observaton techniques
The introducton of observaton techniques is an interestng assessment method considering that the evaluaton of some of the competency components pursued in this teaching experience, in partcular the attudes, are difcult to evaluate with objectve or executon tests, such as the level of interest of the student in relaton with the contents of the subject, the understanding of the feelings of a pilot during a fight or the level of self-confdence of the student towards the pilot's working positon (i.e., competencies C1, C2, C5 and C6).Therefore, these competency components have been partally evaluated through some observaton techniques applied during the executon of the fight simulaton exercises (the skill component of C5, i.e., ability to rapidly adapt to a new situaton has been also evaluated through observaton).In partcular, the teacher has been aware about the comments spontaneously verbalized by the students in order to fnd traces that reveal the presence and/or development of the pursued attudes.When the students have not spontaneously made such comments (or reactons) the teacher has requested the feedback about the current feelings, opinion and expectatve in order to perform the assessment.

Attude and opinion survey
Finally, the same 38 students that did the exercises of the teaching experience have been also requested to fll a short survey in order to assess some of their attudes (in partcular the attude components of C1, C3, C4 and C6) and also their opinions towards the fight simulator actvity and their elements.The complete survey with 16 questons can be found in the following table 7. The ratng scale for the survey has been defned as follows: 1 = Strongly disagree or very low ratng; 2 = Disagree or low ratng; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Agree or high ratng; 5 = Strongly agree or very high ratng.
Items/questons to evaluate 1.The Flight Simulaton (FS) actvity has helped to me to understand the subject's concepts beter.2. The FS actvity has increased my interest for the subject.3. The theoretcal content of the actvity is well structured.4. The theoretcal part is suitably integrated with the practce part. 5. FS practce has helped to me to learn new things.6.I have found interestng the FS actvity.7. The FS sofware has been useful for doing the actvity.8.The FS hardware (yoke and throtles) has been useful for doing the actvity.9. Value the degree of difculty of the exercises performed.10.Value your level of satsfacton with the actvity.11.Extra tme is necessary to develop the actvity beter.12. Afer doing the FS actvity I have increased my general knowledge regarding the subject.13.The teacher/instructor of the FS actvity has expressed with clarity.14.The teacher has used useful examples to explain the subject.15.The teacher has shown enthusiasm for the subject.16.Do you think that is necessary more content as seen in this actvity in the Aeronautcal Management Degree?Table 7. Attude and opinion survey

RESULTS
The following subsectons provide the results obtained for each of the assessment methods.

Objectve test
The objectve test has been answered by 38 of a total of 40 students that performed the Flight Simulaton actvity.The results obtained show that the 92,11% of the students (i.e., 35 students) have successfully passed the test, while only 3 students have failed the test with a mark of 2 out of 5 (three questons answered correctly have been considered the threshold to pass the exam).The most frequent marks have been "3" and the "4" with a number of students of 13 and 20 respectvely.Only three of them have got the maximum punctuaton, a mark of 5.
The results can be analysed queston by queston.The frst query has been answered correctly by 28 of the 38 students, which means a success rate of 73,68%.The number of students that have answered correctly the next second, third and fourth questons have been 22, 15 and 34 respectvely, and its corresponding success rates are 57,89%, 39,47% and 89,47%.The ffh and last queston has been answered correctly by 37 of 38 students, which means a success rate of 97,37%.
Note that it was expected from the beginning that the second and third questons were the most difcult to answer, since these queries show ambiguous answers due to the use of acronyms in the third and due to the use of tricky defnitons in the second.Nevertheless, the second queston was expected to be the most failed queston and not the third one as fnally occurred.
It is important to point out that this test has been requested to the students six weeks afer the fight simulaton experience and they were not informed that the test was going to be requested (the test has been used to assess the teaching experience only, thus it did not count to pass the course).According to Table 8 important diferences can be observed between the performances of the three groups.

Hypothesis test id H 0 H 1 Contrast statstc p-value Result (a = 0.03)
Table 9 shows the statstcal results for diferent hypothesis tests (Newbold, 2001) that make comparisons among the three groups with regards to the proporton of students that have passed the exam (i.e., HT1, HT2 and HT3), the average number of correct answers (i.e., HT4, HT5 and HT6), and the variance that describes the variability of correct answers within each group (i.e., HT7, HT8 and HT8).
T h e p-values that have been calculated indicate that all the null hypotheses, H 0 , can be rejected with a signifcance level of a = 0.03, thus having strong statstcal confdence in the rejecton of the hypothesis (97% of confdence), except in the case of HT7 that should be accepted even for much higher signifcance levels (up to a = 0.6882).The null hypothesis, H 0 , can be rejected in favour of the alternatve hypothesis H 1 for any value of the contrast statstc higher than the signifcance level a and with a confdence level of g = (1a )•100%.The pvalue of the contrast can be interpreted as the critcal signifcance level value such that if a ≥ p-value the null hypothesis H 0 can be rejected (with a confdence level of g = (1a )•100%) and if a < p-value cannot (in such a case it is ofen said that H 0 is "accepted").In the cases shown in Table 9 all the null hypotheses can be rejected with a signifcance level a = 0.03 and with a confdence level of 97% (they some of them can be rejected even for higher confdence levels), except in the case HT7 in which H 0 cannot be rejected with such level of confdence (thus it should be accepted).
These results mean that there is strong statstcal evidence that confrm the diferences among the three groups.Only a 28.21% of the students of Group X have successfully passed the exam, whereas a 53.66% of the students of Group Y have done so.This result suggests that all the students of Aeronautcal Management already had previous knowledge about some of the concepts questoned in the test.Nevertheless, the fact that the 92.11% of the students that have taken the teaching experience have passed the test, together with the fact that the average number of correct answers, z, is signifcantly higher than x and y, suggests that the teaching experience has positvely enhanced the knowledge of the Group Z students.In additon, another fnding that should be remarked is that the variability of the groups X and Y, i.e., S x 2 and S y 2 , are statstcally equal, while the variability of Group Z, S z 2 , is signifcantly smaller.This fact suggests that afer the teaching experience the knowledge of the students has converged (i.e., the knowledge seems to have been unifed among all the students) while the number of questons correctly answered "by-chance" seems to have been reduced.Figure 5 summarizes these results in a graphical manner.
The high success rate of the students passing the exam indicates that objectves O1, O3, O6, O8, O13 and O14 have been successfully achieved and as a consequence the competencies related have been enhanced.

Executon test
During the teaching experience all the students have been able to follow all the exercises proposed, although with high heterogeneity with regards to the levels of precision during the executon of the manoeuvres (i.e., some of the students were already used to manage fight simulators whereas for other it was their very frst contact).Therefore, the successful executon of the exercises designed indicates the consecuton of the objectves O1, O4, O6, O9, O11 and O13.

Observaton techniques
In general, all the students have shown high levels of concentraton during the actvites and explanatons whereas they seemed to enjoy the experience as expected (see Fig. 6).This fact, together with the verbal feedback obtained, suggests that the objectve O2 has been achieved (i.e., the students showed interest for the subject) and thus the competency related, i.e., C1, has been successfully enhanced for most of the students.
During the executon of the actvites, many students spontaneously verbalized some attude changes regarding the pilot working positon, with sentences such as "I did not know that the process of fying required to be so calmed down, whereas the speed of the fight is so fast".The identfcaton of this kind of sentences during the executon allows statng that the student can now understand in a deeper way the tasks, feelings and logical thinking of the pilots (objectves O5, O12 and O15).When the students did not spontaneously express their feelings, the teacher directly requested their opinion and thinking.All the students, except the ones with previous experience in fight pilotng, admited a deeper understanding of the feelings, reasoning and worries related to the pilot's working positon afer the simulaton experience.
At the beginning of the exercises some of the students were notably anxious by the fact of being in the working positon of a pilot by their very frst tme, a feeling that was emphasised by the fact that they had to process a lot of new informaton, had to learn very fast how to manipulate the command and navigaton instruments and at the same tme they had to coordinate all the actons required to accomplish the milestones of the actvites.Afer some minutes of (guided) practce, it was observed that all the students were able to adapt to the new situaton while most of them showed higher levels of self-confdence than at the beginning of the actvites.These observatons suggest that objectves O11 and O15 have also been achieved successfully.

Attude and opinion survey
To facilitate the assessment of the attudes and opinions generated by the teaching experience, the questons of the survey can be re-grouped an analysed in groups of related meanings.
Questons 7, 8 and 14 are fairly illustratve of the satsfacton levels regarding the Simulaton component of the teaching experience (see Fig. 7).In partcular, questons 7 and 8 show that most of the students found the fight simulaton system (both hardware and sofware) to be highly appropriate for the purposes of the actvites.Specifcally, the 97% of the students agreed or strongly agreed with the queston 7 and the 89% with queston 8, whereas the rest remained neutral.Queston 14 shows that the major part of the students has considered useful the ability of the fight simulaton system to recreate realistc scenarios that were used for educatonal purposes.Specifcally, the 82% of the students agreed or strongly agreed, whereas only a 5% disagreed and the rest remained neutral.
Note that to answer these questons (i.e., 7, 8 and 14) the students have needed to analyse which of the aeronautcal technologies available in the cockpit have been used during the exercises, and then determine the levels of realism provided by the simulaton components in relaton to the actvites proposed during the teaching experience.The high levels of satsfacton obtained in these items suggest that the students must have taken into account the usefulness of abstractng some of the instruments and procedures required in real fight executons (the simulaton components are part of a Basic Instrument Training Device and thus they are relatvely simplistc and austere) in order to ease a basic training of the commanding and navigaton skills.Such (most likely) reasoning indicates that the students are now able to perform critcal thinking with regards the aeronautcal technologies present in the cockpit, and thus the objectves O7 and O10 (i.e., critcal thinking) can be considered as achieved.Under the same arguments, also the objectve 14 (i.e., ability to identfy how a decision may afect or may be afected by the pilot or the cockpit instrumentaton) should be considered as successfully observed.8).In partcular, queston 6 shows that most of the students have found the actvity to be interestng (90% agreed or strongly agreed), while queston 2 shows that students have increased their interest on the subject due to such actvity (82% agreed or strongly agreed).These results are directly related with the successful consecuton of objectve O2 and confrm the assessment done through observaton of attudes during the executon of the actvites.Queston 9 shows that the difculty of the fight simulaton exercises has been considered adequate in average: the 53% considered neutral/medium difculty, the 24% considered the exercises to be difcult (although no one found them very difcult), and the 23% considered the exercises to be easy or very easy (note that some of the students were familiar to fight simulators whereas for some of them this actvity was their very frst contact).Note that the percepton of the difculty is a direct refex of the selfconfdence levels regarding the fight navigaton actvites performed.The fact that the levels of difculty perceived are well balanced in average suggests that the competences related to objectve O15 (i.e., ability to feel self-confdent in the context of fight commanding and navigaton) have been achieved.

Figure 8. Survey questons related to the Game component
Regarding the Pedagogical component, the questons 1, 5 and 12 allows statng that the students have perceived the actvity as valuable from the point of view of the learning process (see Fig. 9).Note that in questons 1 and 5 more than 75% of the students recognized that the actvity has contributed or strongly contributed to their learning process, whereas in queston 12 (that refers to the amount of knowledge acquired in relaton to all the contents of the subject) this percentage has diminished up to 63%.This could be atributed to the fact that the fight simulaton actvity represents no more than 5% of the concepts seen in the subject during the entre course.In any case, these results contribute to reinforce that the objectve O1, O2, O14 and O15 have been achieved.

Figure 9. Survey questons related to the Pedagogical component
Finally, questons 10, 11 and 16 allow evaluatng the percepton of the students with regards to the ES actvity as a whole (see Fig. 10).In partcular, queston 10 directly asks for the levels of satsfacton, and again more than 75% of the students have agreed that the actvity has been satsfactory or highly satsfactory, whereas only a 6% disagreed (no one strongly disagreed) and the rest remained neutral.Questons 11 and 16 illustrate that students demand for extra actvites similar to the ones presented in this paper.Specifcally, a 79% agreed or strongly agreed to queston 11 and an 82% agreed or strongly agreed to queston 12.To be remarked that the 69% of the students strongly agreed with the idea that this kind of Educatonal Simulaton actvites should be also introduced in other subjects of the degree (only a 5% disagree to such idea and no one strongly disagreed).

CONCLUSIONS
A Learning-by-Doing teaching experience that has made use of an Educatonal Simulaton system has been performed and presented in this paper.Specifcally, a basic fight simulaton environment has been set up, which has allowed the students experimentng and conductng some of the most common tasks of an aircraf pilot.The actvity has been designed for students of the degree on Aeronautcal Management in order to improve their competencies in the feld of the air transportaton, specifcally providing them with a clearer picture about the most important processes that are involved in the commanding and navigaton of an aircraf (including the pilot's logical reasoning), as well as increasing their ability to understand and detect potental areas of improvement based on the use of the new technologies and higher levels of automaton.Such capabilites may contribute in turn to improve the decision-making competencies of the students in their future professional working positons related to the air transportaton market.
The acquisiton by part of the students of some of the pursued competencies (knowledge, skills and attudes related to aircraf commanding and navigaton) has been successfully observed and assessed during the executon of the actvites.In additon, afer the executon of the teaching experience it has been evaluated with an objectve test and an attude and opinion survey, both flled by 38 students six weeks later and without any previous announcement (i.e., surprise exam).Afer analysing the results of the diferent assessment methods used (i.e., objectve test, executon test, observaton techniques and attude survey) it can be argued that the teaching experience has been a success in terms of the objectves pursued.
The results have indicated that the students have learned and assimilated the pursued concepts of fight commanding and navigaton with a very high success rate, i.e., the 92,11% of students have passed the surprise exam while all the students succeed in the executon test and in the evaluaton of attudes.Furthermore, according to the results of the opinion survey, it can be stated that the acquisiton of the sofware and hardware products used for the fight simulaton experience has been a wise decision.Finally, the levels of satsfacton with regards to the Educatonal Simulaton experience have been also very high, showing that most of the students have enjoyed the experience while they admit that these actvites have contributed to their learning process; congruently, they express a demand for extra similar Educatonal Simulaton actvites as part of their university studies.
As seen, Educatonal Simulaton can provide to teachers with an interestng framework to perform highly efectve learning experiences, in partcular enabling the development of Learning-by-Doing actvites that can facilitate the learning process of the students and also the acquisiton of competencies that otherwise might be difcult to achieve.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4.The teacher has guided and assessed the correct executon of the actvites

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Box diagram with the statstcal results of the three compared groups

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.The students presented high levels of concentraton

Figure 7 .
Figure 7. Survey questons related to the Simulaton component

Figure 10 .
Figure 10.Survey questons related to the Educatonal Simulaton actvity as a whole

Table 3
. Subject Contents and their relatonship with the competencies and objectves

Table 4 .
Actvites and their relatonship with the subject contents and objectves

Table 9 .
Hypothesis tests comparing the results of the three groups