he Virtual Playground: an Educational Virtual Reality Environment for Evaluating Interactivity and Conceptual Learning

The Virtual Playground: an Educational
Virtual Reality Environment for Evaluating
Interactivity and Conceptual Learning

Maria Roussou¹, Martin Oliver², Mel Slater^1,3

¹Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK
²London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, UK

³ICREA - Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain

Tel. +44 20 76793664

Fax +44 20 73871317

[email protected]

http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/M.Roussou/research/

Abstract The research presented in this paper aims at investigating user interaction in
immersive virtual learning environments (VLEs), focusing on the role and the effect of
interactivity on conceptual learning. The goal has been to examine if the learning of young
users improves through interacting in (i.e. exploring, reacting to, and acting upon) an
immersive virtual environment (VE) compared to non interactive or non-immersive
environments. Empirical work was carried out with more than 55 primary school students
between the ages of 8 and 12, in different between-group experiments: an exploratory study,
a pilot study, and a large-scale experiment. The latter was conducted in a virtual environment
designed to simulate a playground. In this ‘Virtual Playground’, each participant was asked to
complete a set of tasks designed to address arithmetical ‘fractions’ problems. Three different
conditions, two experimental virtual reality (VR) conditions and a non-VR condition, that
varied the levels of activity and interactivity, were designed to evaluate how children
accomplish the various tasks. Pre-tests, post-tests, interviews, video, audio, and log files were
collected for each participant, and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. This paper
presents a selection of case studies extracted from the qualitative analysis, which illustrate the
variety of approaches taken by children in the VEs in response to visual cues and system
feedback. Results suggest that the fully interactive VE aided children in problem solving but
did not provide as strong evidence of conceptual change as expected; rather, it was the
passive VR environment, where activity was guided by a virtual robot, that seemed to support
student reflection and recall, leading to indications of conceptual change.

Keywords: Virtual learning environments, Interactivity, Conceptual
Learning, Evaluation

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