Investigating high school students’ perceptions and presences under VR learning environment

ABSTRACT

Recently, Virtual Reality (VR) has developed rapidly. Some studies propose that VR has a great deal of potential as an instructional media for learning, while other studies indicate that VR may be ineffective or even negatively influence learners’ learning experience. Few studies provide reference to educators or teachers based on empirical data. This study investigates 55 10th-grade learners’ perceptions and presences in a VR-based blended learning environment. A research framework based on social presence theory and the Community of Inquiry model (CoI) was adopted in order to study social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence of learners in a VR-based practical, blended learning environment. The research findings are as follows: (1) VR enhanced learners’ perception of the teaching equipment and the classroom, social presence, teaching presence. (2) VR-based blended learning can have a positive effect on the interest, attention, and interaction of learners. (3) For transferring well-structured knowledge, there is no significant difference between traditional instructional media and VR. But for transferring ill-structured knowledge, VR is more effective at promoting learning than traditional instructional media. In general, VR-based learning environments can positively affect students’ perceptions and presence.

KEYWORDS:

• VR
• perception
• presence
• CoI
• learning experience

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Jilin Provincial Science and Technology Developing Foundation of China, the 13th Five-Year Planning Social Science Foundation of Educational Department of Jilin Province, and the NENU-iFlytek Joint Lab, the NENU-Osaka University Joint Lab.

In addition, thanks for the help and guidance from Teacher Li, Huixiao Le, and our instructor Professor Wang.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hai Zhang He received the PhD degree in human sciences from Osaka university, Japan. He is currently a chair professor at the Northeast Normal University, China. He has published more than 130 papers in the area of instructional technology and more than 13 papers in international conference. His research interests include educational technology, knowledge media dynamics and teacher’s professional development, and artificial intelligent in education.

Luyao Yu She is a postgraduate at Northeast Normal University. Her research interests include instructional technology, and artificial intelligent in education. She is a member of IEEE. She has published one IEEE conference paper in the area of teacher’s professional development and one paper in Global Conference on Computers in Education.

Mengxue Ji She is a postgraduate at Northeast Normal University. Her research interests include instructional technology, and TPACK. She has published one IEEE conference paper in the area of TPACK. She has published one paper in International Joint Conference on Information, Media and Engineering (ICIME 2018).

Yulu Cui He is a postgraduate at Northeast Normal University. His research interests include smart education, instructional technology, and TPACK. He has published one IEEE conference paper in the area of TPACK. He has published one paper in Global Conference on Computers in Education and one IEEE conference paper in 2018.

Dongping Liu She is a PhD candidate at Northeast Normal University. Her research interests include instructional technology, and TPACK. She has published one IEEE conference paper in the area of TPACK.

Yan Li He received the PhD degree in School of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Trade. He is a teacher of Beijing 65th Middle School.

Haiqiao liu He is a postgraduate at Northeast Normal University. His research interests include media science.

Yining Wang He is a professor in Northeast Normal University. He participated in the research work of network teaching system in the University of Glasgow as a state sponsored visiting scholar. He has published more than 300 papers in the areas of instructional technology.

ORCID

Hai Zhang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4234-3330

Luyao Yu http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1618-6391

Mengxue Ji http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6741-0894

Yulu Cui http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0087-9903

Dongping Liu http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4141-873X

Yining Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4210-7503