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

effect that the addition of various interactive properties might have on the
learning goal []. The results led to the conclusion that just adding interactivity
did not seem to increase the efficiency of the learning environment since the
interactive 3D environment did not seem to provide the expected learning
gains. However, it was noted that the study was exploratory and additional
investigation was required, since learning seemed to be affected by a complex
interaction of representation properties, task demands, and within-subject
factors.

To summarize, VR projects developed for educational purposes have either
not provided the analytical evidence to demonstrate learning as a result of
interaction with the environment or, where an educational impact was
perceived, there is no explanation of which forms of interactivity are
effective. More importantly, the role of interactivity within learning has not
been the focus of any of the evaluations carried out as such. Hence, the
research question that emerges is how interactivity in a virtual learning
environment can influence learning. To provide answers to this question, we
first need to address how this can be studied. In the next sections, we describe
the design of our studies and the virtual environments created to support
them.

3. Defining a methodology for study and analysis

Since our goal is to study learning as a result of the learner’s interaction with
a virtual environment, a learning task had to be specified and an interactive
virtual environment built with enough features as to invoke the multiple levels
of interactivity found in VR applications []. Our first idea, which was
developed with consultation from supportive math and science teachers, was
to create a task where the participant had to build a temple by identifying and
assembling its various parts. As an idea, the construction of a temple is
advantageous because it encompasses an inherently activity-rich process, so it
formed the basis for our exploratory studies.

A set of exploratory studies was carried out with children between 8 and 12
years old. The children were asked to complete tasks involving the assembly
of ancient columns from parts in an immersive stereoscopic VR system (a

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