Feedback Mechanism in Immersive Virtual Reality Influences Physical Hands-on Task Performance and Cognitive Load

Abstract

The affordance of immersive virtual reality (VR) holds great potential for education, supporting learning through simulation and visualization. However, the literature on STEM education indicates that VR learning is not necessarily more effective than traditional learning, because participants are immersed in learning environments with high visual loads, which increases cognitive load, resulting in poor learning outcomes. In addition, VR studies rarely evaluate learner performance in physical hands-on activities after participating in VR learning programs. Therefore, in this study, we seek to reduce cognitive load by incorporating feedback into the VR learning environment. This study conducts a quasi-experiment and proposes a VR learning environment for embedded electronic circuits and a practical hands-on task, to investigate learners’ learning performance on practical hands-on task skills and their cognitive load. Participants were randomly assigned to groups with and without feedback. The results show that feedback in the VR environment is effective in reducing participants’ extraneous cognitive load and increasing engagement, with fewer trial-and-error times in the learning units and better performance in the physical hands-on task.

Keywords:

• Immersive virtual reality
• cognitive load
• engagement
• feedback
• hands-on task
• embedded electronic circuits

Author contributions

All author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the National Science and Technology Council (MOST), Taiwan, R.O.C. under grant Nos. MOST 109-2511-H-006-011-MY3 and MOST 110-2511-H-006-008-MY3.

Notes on contributors

Wei-Sheng Wang

Wei-Sheng Wang is one of the leaders of this research, he is responsible for assisting in the conduct of experiments design, surveying related literature, and proofreading the manuscript.

Chia-Ju Lin

Chia-Ju Lin is the leader of this research, she is in charge of the research design, conducting teaching and learning experiments, data analysis, and writing the manuscript.

Hsin-Yu Lee

Hsin-Yu Lee is responsible for assisting in the conduct of experiments and surveying related literature.

Ting-Ting Wu

Ting-Ting Wu is responsible for assisting in the conduct of experiments. She is also responsible for revising the manuscript.

Yueh-Min Huang

Yueh-Min Huang is responsible for designing research experiments and providing fundamental education theories and comments on this research. He is also responsible for revising the manuscript. All authors spent more than 4 months discussing and analyzing the data.