Enhancing Students' Knowledge of Air Conditioning Processes Using a Psychrometric Simulator

Mastery of psychrometric processes is an important component of air-conditioning education, as students need to understand the relationships among various air properties and changes in air conditions during air-conditioning processes. This study aimed to determine the improvement in students’ knowledge after learning with a psychrometric simulator. A quantitative approach with a One-Group Pretest-Posttest design was employed. The participants were 36 students of the Mechanical Engineering Education Study Program in the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning field who were enrolled in an Air Conditioning course. Data were collected using a conceptual knowledge test covering cognitive levels C1–C4. Learning improvement was analyzed using the Normalized Gain (N-gain). The results showed that the students’ mean score increased from 62.56 on the pre-test to 80.22 on the post-test, with a mean N-gain of 0.45, categorized as moderate. The distribution of N-gain scores indicated that 36.11% of students were in the low category, 33.33% in the moderate category, and 30.56% in the high category. These findings indicate that the psychrometric simulator has the potential to support air-conditioning education by helping students connect changes in air properties with air-conditioning processes through measurement, observation, and psychrometric chart analysis.