Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted globally on many industries worldwide (e.g., business and tourism). It has also caused unprecedented disruption to Thailand’s educational system. For instance, regular face-to-face classrooms had been temporarily stopped and moved to full-time online learning in which educators and students have used commercially available e-learning platforms (e.g., Moodle) and conferencing tools (e.g., Zoom). Although e-learning platforms and conferencing tools have shown benefits for both educators and learners, social interaction is limited on such platforms. Alternative solutions such as Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have shown promise to solve these challenges; however, research is limited in using such VR technologies in higher education in Thailand. To fill these gaps, we conducted a comparative usability study of three different learning platforms (three-dimensional VR – Spatial.io, two-dimensional VR – Gather.town, and Zoom application) to understand differences in usability and user experiences in terms of students’ engagement, enjoyment, and their sociability in learning. Findings suggest that due to its game-like environment and user-friendly features and user interface, Gather.town is the most promising alternative for online learning in higher education in Thailand. This study suggests opportunities for using game-like virtual classrooms for students to improve their engagement in learning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
William, R.S., Craig, A.B.: Understanding virtual reality: interface, application, and design. In: A volume in The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics. 2nd edn. Morgan Kaufmann (2018)
Frost, P., Warren, P.: Virtual reality used in a collaborative architectural design process. In: Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE Conference on Information Visualization. An International Conference on Computer Visualization and Graphics, pp. 586–573 (2000)
Kim, Y., Kim, H., Kim, Y.: Virtual reality and augmented reality in plastic surgery: a review. Arch. Plast. Surg. 44(3), 179–187 (2017)
Sam, K., Luxton-Reilly, A., Wuensche, B., Beryl, P.: A systematic review of virtual reality in education. Themes Sci. Technol. Educ. 10(2), 85–119 (2017)
Marr, B.: 10 Best Examples Of VR And AR In Education. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2021/07/23/10-best-examples-of-vr-and-ar-in-education/?sh=581dd7cc1f48. Accessed 30 May 2022
Savage, E.N.: A conceptual framework for technology education: a historical perspective. J. Technol. Stud. 28, 98–100 (2002)
Perkins, A., Kelly, S., Dumbleton, H., Whitfield, S.: Pandemic pupils: COVID-19 and the impact on student paramedics. Australas. J. Paramedicine (2020). https://doi.org/10.33151/ajp.17.811
Usability testing: https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/usability-testing.html. Accessed 15 April 2022
Jeff, S., James, R.L.: Quantifying the User Experience. Practical Statistics for User Research. 2nd edn. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, US (2012)
O’Brien, H.L., Cairns, P., Hall, M.: A practical approach to measuring user engagement with the refined user engagement scale (UES) and new UES short form. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 112, 28–39 (2018)
Jeff, S.: Measuring usability: From the SUS to the UMUX-Lite. https://measuringu.com/umux-lite/. Accessed 30 May 2022
Jakob, N.: 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/#poster. Accessed 30 May 2022
Office of the Research Ethics Review Committee for Research Involving Human Subjects: https://www.research.chula.ac.th/office-of-the-research-ethics-review-committee-for-research-involving-human-subjects/. Accessed 15 April 2022
Descriptive Analysis: How-to, types, examples. https://pestleanalysis.com/descriptive-analysis/. Accessed 15 April 2022
Braun, V., Clarke, V.: Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qual. Res. Psychol. 3(2), 77–101 (2006)
Gather.town: https://www.gather.town/about. Accessed 05 May 2022
Spatial.io: https://spatial.io/about. Accessed 05 May 2022
Martin, F., Bolliger, D.U.: Engagement matters: student perceptions on the importance of engagement strategies in the online learning environment. Online Learn. 22(1), 205–222 (2018)
Pangestu, H., Karsen, M.: Evaluation of usability in online learning. In: 2016 International Conference on Information Management and Technology (ICIMTech), pp. 267–271 (2016)
Phang, C.W., Kankanhalli, A., Sabherwal, R.: Usability and sociability in online communities: a comparative study of knowledge seeking and contribution. J. Assoc. Inf. Syst. 10(10), 721–747 (2009)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Sriworapong, S., Pyae, A., Thirasawasd, A., Keereewan, W. (2022). Investigating Students’ Engagement, Enjoyment, and Sociability in Virtual Reality-Based Systems: A Comparative Usability Study of Spatial.io, Gather.town, and Zoom. In: Li, H., Ghorbanian Zolbin, M., Krimmer, R., Kärkkäinen, J., Li, C., Suomi, R. (eds) Well-Being in the Information Society: When the Mind Breaks. WIS 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1626. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14832-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14832-3_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-14831-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-14832-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)