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The virtual playground: an educational virtual reality environment for evaluating interactivity and conceptual learning

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Abstract

The research presented in this paper aims at investigating user interaction in immersive virtual learning environments, 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 analysed 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 a 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.

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Notes

  1. Most of the attempts to define interactivity recognize gradations of activity, both in the physical (kinesthetic) and the intellectual sense. For the purposes of this research, we adopt the general framework proposed by Pares and Pares (2001), where interactivity in a VE is classified as explorative (involving, in practice, spatial navigation), manipulative (the manipulation of parameters and elements of the VE), and contributive (the ability to alter the system of operation itself).

  2. Consisting of four projection surfaces (three walls and the floor).

  3. Pseudonyms have been given to all children that participated in the studies and that are mentioned here.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank all the children who participated in the studies and their parents, as well as the educators and researchers who volunteered to help with the design of the learning content, the long recruitment process, and the validation of observations and interpretations. Special thanks are due to Maria Mplouna, mathematics teacher, for the time, enthusiasm, and expertise that she has offered to this project and to Alexandre Mangon-Olivier, Dimitris Christopoulos, and George Drettakis for modeling, animation and technical guidance concerning the implementation of the virtual environment. The studies for this research have been approved by the UCL Committee on the Ethics of Non-NHS Human Research, Study No. 0171/001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, UK

    Maria Roussou & Mel Slater

  2. London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, London, UK

    Martin Oliver

  3. ICREA, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Catalunya, Spain

    Mel Slater

Authors
  1. Maria Roussou
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  2. Martin Oliver
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  3. Mel Slater
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Correspondence to Maria Roussou.

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Roussou, M., Oliver, M. & Slater, M. The virtual playground: an educational virtual reality environment for evaluating interactivity and conceptual learning. Virtual Reality 10, 227–240 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-006-0035-5

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