Primary school students’ experiences of immersive virtual reality use in the classroom

Figures & data

Table 1. Participants, project descriptions, and I-VR’s role

Area	Grade level (Mean age)	Student N	Goal of the project	I-VR role in the project	Length of the project
Urban	6th grade (12)	18	Explore and present countries from continents other than Europe.	Explore countries and find meaningful scenes.	3 months
Urban	5th grade (11)	22	Explore and present European countries and cities.	Travel virtually to a vacation destination and find a meaningful scene.	3 months
Rural	5th grade (11)	19	Explore and present European countries and cities.	Orienteer to a city and explore its sights.	3 months

Figure 1. Screenshot of Google Earth VR’s globe hologram¹.

Figure 2. 6th graders’ virtual field trip platformThingLink in .

Figure 3. 5th graders’ virtual field trip platform in ThingLink.

Table 2. Data collection instruments and respondents

Instrument	Rural 5th grade (N)	Urban 5th grade (N)	Urban 6th grade (N)	Total (N)
Background information survey	18	22	18	58
Online questionnaire	15	22	18	55
Post-survey	17	21	15	53

Figure 4. The applied qualitative content analysis loop.

Table 3. Categorisation of students’ experiences (frequency of mentions)

Main category	Sub-categories	f	Positive	Negative
Actualized affordances	Virtual-physical	107	104	7
	Cognitive	37	37	0
	Emotional	31	28	3
TOTAL		175	165	10
Usability	Ease of use	43	42	1
	Simplicity	21	20	1
	Clarity	17	10	7
	Discomfort	6	-	6
TOTAL		87	72	15
Emotions	Awe	30	25	5
	Satisfaction	25	23	2
	Joy	18	17	1
	Excitement	8	7	1
TOTAL		81	72	9

Table 4. The actualized affordances of the I-VR system

Main category	Sub- categories	Example	f	Positive	Negative
Virtual-physical	Observing	It was cool to see other cities and places. (R54)	44	42	2
	Exploring	It works best when you get to “explore places such as countries, mountains, and others”. (U618)	34	31	3
	Travelling	It works best for “travelling”. (U58)	20	18	2
	Flying	I enjoyed “flying” the most. (R516)	9	9	-
Cognitive	Immersion	I enjoyed when I was looking our house in the air. (U517)	33	33	-
	Projection	It works best for “learning about the world and what different places look like”. (U56)	4	4	-
Emotional	Autonomy	I enjoyed the most that you could go where you wanted to go. (U615)	31	28	3

Notes. Students’ answers are italicized. R5 for rural 5th grade, U5 for urban 5th grade, and U6 for urban 6th grade.

Table 5. Students’ assessment of the I-VR system’s usability

Main category	Sub-categories	Example	f	Positive	Negative
Ease of use	Controllers	It was easy because of the easy controls. (U613)	14	13	1
	Guidance	It had a tutorial, and it made the use easy. (U618)	10	10	-
	General easiness	I liked it that it was easy to use and that it was fun. (U519)	9	9	-
	Functions	The search-feature was easy to use. (U68)	6	6	-
	Facility	It was easy to use because I have used HTC Vive before. (U69)	4	4	-
Simplicity	Device	The device was simple. (U520)	7	7	-
	Program	The operating system was not too complex. (R57)	7	6	1
	Controllers	There were no extra buttons. (U55)	5	5	-
	Guidance	In the beginning, it explained what each button does and when to use it. They were very simple instructions, so they were not hard to remember. (U66)	2	2	-
Clarity	Visibility	The visibility was a bit bad. (R53)	11	4	7
	Guidance	“Clear instructions” made the program easy to use. (U610)	6	6	-
Discomfort		When using the glasses, I started to feel sick, and I got a headache. (R514)	6	-	6

Notes. Students’ answers are italicized. R5 for rural 5^th, U5 for urban 5^th, and U6 for urban 6^th.

Table 6. Students’ positive and negative emotional experiences of I-VR

Example	Sub-categories	Positive	Negative	Opposites	Example
It felt almost the same as real life. (U612)	Awe	25	5	Disappointment	I did not like how “people looked strange”. (U67)
I liked everything. (U512)	Satisfaction	23	2	Discontent	I did not like how “it was difficult at first”. (R54)
It was a blast. (U518)	Joy	17	1	Boredom	It was boring and irritating. (U57)
It was very interesting to see virtual reality. (U54)	Excitement	7	1	Fright	It was scary, and at the beginning, it did not work. (U57)

Notes. We did not want to underestimate mentions of negative emotions. Thus, we specified them in this table. The table is read from the middle outwards to direct attention towards the ratio of positive and negative mentions. Students’ answers are italicized. R5 for rural 5^th, U5 for urban 5^th, and U6 for urban 6^th.

Table 7. The virtual reality system’s impact on learning

Main category	Sub-categories	Example	f
Motivation	Fun and novel	Learning was much more fun, and I learned more about I-VR things. (U67)	21
	Easy and comprehensive	Virtual reality impacted my learning so that it was not as difficult to study. (U53)	8
	Empowering	To me, virtual reality was like being freed from other schoolwork because it was so relaxing and fun, and afterwards, it felt good to continue learning. (U56)	5
TOTAL			34
Methods	Visualization	We got to look at amazing places in 3D, without actually going to that place. I think it helped a lot with choosing the country and places we wanted to show to our class in ThingLink. (U66)	17
	Immersed and boundless experiences	I could go to our topic country. (R515)	12
TOTAL			29
Content	Virtual reality	It affected, like, now, I know how to use I-VR glasses. (U521)	11
	Project’s topics	With virtual reality, I knew more about what the countries look like in real life. (U613)	11
TOTAL			22
No impact		Learning with the I-VR was a new experience, but it did not really affect me anyhow. (U65)	6

Notes. Students’ answers are italicized. R5 for rural 5^th, U5 for urban 5^th, and U6 for urban 6^th.

Table 8. Primary school students’ definitions of virtual reality

Aspect	Example	f
Device	Virtual reality is a thing where you wear glasses and hand controls and you can see things in virtual life. (U510)	28
Mental immersion	Virtual reality is like a world where you can see places like you really were there. (U614)	18
Project	Virtual reality is reality made by humans. If you put on I-VR glasses, you can see and explore Earth from space or on the ground. (U52)	16
Artificial reality	It is not true reality. (R518)	7

Notes. Students’ answers are italicized. R5 for rural 5^th, U5 for urban 5^th, and U6 for urban 6^th.

Table 9. Themes and examples of students’ virtual worlds

Main theme	Sub-theme	Example	n
Space	Real	I would go to Maldives and learn about their culture and about what they eat. (U610)	29
	Imaginary	I would travel to Harry Potter magic realm and would want to learn how to cast spells. (U519)	22
Time	Alternative timeline	I would like to travel to a time where there would be all magical creatures, like unicorns. (R514)	22
	Present	I would like to go learn about other planets in our Solar system, like Saturn and Jupiter. (U52)	20
	Past	I would like to travel to a time when there were dinosaurs, and it would be in a forest. (U510)	5
	Future	That world would probably be in the future. It would be nice and comfortable like now, but technology will be everywhere. There would be futuristic gadgets and everything that I am interested in. There, learning would be even more fun than now. (U617)	4

Notes. Students’ answers are italicized. R5 for rural 5^th, U5 for urban 5^th, and U6 for urban 6^th.

Figure 5. Space and time analysis of fantasy virtual worlds.