IS VIRTUAL REALITY A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE IN AN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT?
Is Virtual Reality a Memorable Experience in an
Educational Context?
doi:10.3991/ijet.v6i1.1433
0
T. Nadan, V.N. Alexandrov, R. Jamieson and K.A. Watson
University of Reading, Reading, UK
Abstract—Learning science concepts are very often challenging, especially when complex concepts are involved.
Teachers have recourse to many different types of teaching
methods which are however limited when it comes to explaining students about three dimensionality concepts. With
these limitations, the teaching methods fall short in increasing the interest of students. It is therefore important to understand how the new generation learns and hence to teach
them accordingly. Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging technology which can be used for teaching science concepts. VR
is innovative and hence easily captures students’ interest.
This paper presents the results of some preliminary studies
conducted with a view to showing the extent to which VR is
a memorable experience for students, in order to support
its use for teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) concepts.
Index Terms—Memorable experience, STEM education,
Virtual Reality.
I. INTRODUCTION
Advance in technology has speeded up the general way
in which students learn. To keep in pace with this change
in the learning process, different teaching strategies have
had to be employed in school. Learning and teaching
changed from a book-based approach, to a more pictorial
and group work approach and later on adopted instructional technologies such as projectors, PowerPoint presentations, advanced calculators and computer conferencing,
to name a few. The book-based approach is a traditional
pedagogical method which involves a passive way of
learning while the pictorial and group work includes active learning through hands-on activities, two-dimensional
(2D) models and group projects, among others. A more
advanced learning methodology is via the instructional
technologies. These mainly include e-learning technologies which make use of computer technologies such as
internet access, networking, modelling softwares and Virtual Reality (VR), among others [1]. E-learning technologies provide more cooperation and collaboration between
students, research works and web-based activities. These
technologies are similar to the ways students gather information and communicate outside school hours [1]. In
fact, according to a 2008 report by OfCom, 27% of age
group 15-24 use a personal computer with internet access
for TV viewing, 45% use it watch video clips and 52%
download music, videos, clips and files [2]. This shows
that students feel culturally comfortable with the elearning technologies, which are thus easily accepted in
schools.
In this paper we propose the use of cutting edge technologies along side traditional teaching methods as a
iJET – Volume 6, Issue 1, March 2011
means to enhance learning, specifically in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
In fact, it has been shown that retention of newly acquired
knowledge increases by ten times when the new knowledge is put into use [3]. Virtual Reality (VR) is in line
with this active learning process and the study conducted
evaluates what students remember the most when subjected to various new instructional technologies which
extrapolate from theoretical concepts that they have studied in the classroom. As the old saying by Conficius
states: ‘I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and
I understand’, we wanted to lay emphasis on experimental
education as a means to enhance learning and allow students to explore these concepts. The paper will outline the
learning process and some benefits of technologies in
education and elaborate on a set of preliminary tests carried out to investigate how memorable VR is in an education context. The results obtained from these tests will be
presented and discussed to show how VR can help in
STEM education.
II. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Learning is a generic term which refers to the acquisition of knowledge. Prior to teaching any group of students, it is imperative for teachers to know about the
learning process. Once comprehension of the learning
process is gained, teachers must then understand how a
particular age group or an individual learner best acquires
information, processes the newly acquired information
and how this information is best remembered by the
learner. This can be achieved through assessing two criteria, namely: learning style and learning modality, from the
students’ perspectives.
Willing defines learning style as being one’s natural,
usual and preferred way of learning [4]. Kolb describes
the learning process and learning style as consisting of a
cycle of four inter-related stages: concrete experience;
observation and reflection; abstract conceptualization and
generalization; and active experimentation. Concrete experience focuses on direct experiences, that is, the ‘first
person’ experiences. Reflective observation occurs
through studying others, the learner engages fully into the
learning of new experiences without any bias. Abstract
conceptualization involves the creation of new concepts
based on the observations made in order to form a logical
theory. Active experimentation, on the other hand, is an
approach of putting concepts into practice. It lays emphasis on the importance of experience in the learning process
and makes use of the logical theories defined in the previous step, for problem solving and decision making [5, 6].
According to Willing [4], the learning style is influenced by one’s cognitive skills, socio-cultural back-
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IS VIRTUAL REALITY A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE IN AN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT?
ground, educational instruction and experiences and finally by one’s personal strengths, weaknesses and capabilities. In [7], the authors state that the use of learning
models will help teachers to enhance the students' ability
to learn.
The second criterion, learning modality, further defines
four groups of factors, namely: auditory, visual, tactile and
kinesthetic. Unlike auditory learners whose retention is
focused on listening to the teacher or to their own voice,
visual learners learn best by visualizing objects or mentally creating objects to match descriptions. Tactile learners, on the other hand, prefer to touch and play around
with objects, while kinesthetic learners mostly adopt a
concrete experiential approach, whereby simulations, explorations and problem-solving are preferred.
Identification of the learning style and learning modality of a particular age group involves very much understanding the lifestyle of students, so that communication
of knowledge is perceived correctly. Understanding of
newly acquired information is a key aspect to retention of
that newly acquired knowledge. The current generation
students have shifted from being the traditional auditory
learners to being more visual, tactile and kinesthetic learners. Being more inquisitive in nature, the new generation
students prefer to see what they are learning and experience the newly acquired knowledge. Previous knowledge
is combined with first person experience to positively influence understanding and future [8]. As a matter of fact,
the authoritarian way of teaching no more has its place it
this new era and instead teaching is more student-centred
process. Educators have changed from being knowledge
givers to knowledge facilitators [9]. However, though
importance must be given particularly to the learner; the
educator, organization and content are also important factors to bear in mind [3].
supports student learning to a greater extent compared to
those without any access to these technologies [16]. Additionally, instructional technologies help in networking and
collaboration among students, between the teacher and the
student and also collaboration with other group of students
and teachers in different schools.
Now that learning and instructional technologies have
been explained, another question that crops up for teachers
is ‘how to use instructional technology for teaching science?’. Learning of sciences differs somewhat from the
general learning process. Ebenezer et al. described the
constructivism theory as being used as an interactive
mode for science learning and teaching [11]. This theory
takes into consideration that a student makes use of his/her
own beliefs and experiences to acquire knowledge. According to Piaget [17], learning is constructed in the
learner’s mind. In 1977, Karplus [18] developed a learning cycle based on the Piagetian principle. Karplus’ learning cycle includes exploration, explanation and application [11]. The exploration phase allows students to perform experiments about concepts which they do not know
before hand. This is followed by the explanation phase,
whereby the student explains his/her understanding and
the teacher gives further explanation about the observed
phenomena in the experiment, relating the different scientific concepts involved to the observation made. Finally,
the application phase involves the use of the newly learnt
concepts to more situations
The rapid technological boom has reshaped the way
students acquire knowledge and learn and has added additional requirements on teaching and learning to make students more prepared for future technological challenges
and we believe that instructional technologies can be
taken one step ahead by integrating Virtual Reality (VR)
as a teaching and learning aid for students.
III. USE OF TECHNOLOGIES IN THE LEARNING PROCESS
According to Albright et al. [10], instructional technologies have various benefits. For instance instructors
can teach students tasks which cannot be shown or reproduced in the classroom, such as molecular structures,
which are too small to visualize with the naked eye. Additionally, in the information age, instructional technologies
help students to understand their surroundings better and
to face real world challenges better. For example, pinhole
cameras can be used to teach how the concept of light and
why image is inverted in a camera [11]. According to
Wiske [12], when being used by knowledgeable educators
to support learning, instructional technologies can bring a
huge improvement in the teaching and learning processes.
Also, these technologies help in faster communication and
processing, hence increasing productivity. For instance,
instead of spending time solving equations and plotting
graphs for data, advanced calculators provide easy display
of mathematical functions and graphs, giving the student
more time to assess, interprete and understand the graphical representations [12]. When used in an effective way,
instructional technologies increase students’ interest and
stimulate comprehension [13, 14]. In 1999, Bain et al.
conducted a study whereby students subjected to technology-based teaching methods had an average of 94 points
more in the SAT-I than those who had the traditionalbased method [15]. Another study on the impact of educational technology on student achievement proved that the
use of computer-assisted or computer-mediated instruction
IV. WHAT IS VIRTUAL REALITY?
Virtual Reality is a three-dimensional (3D) simulation
of a real or imaginary system. Users of such a system can
often manipulate virtual objects in the simulated environment, with the effects being rendered in real time. Immersion and presence are two important concepts which are
often used to describe the extent of virtuality of VR systems. The former is described as the deepness of a user’s
experience in a virtual environment, while presence is a
subjective feeling of being in an environment when the
person is physically in another environment [19]. These
two terms have significant impact on users’ behaviour in a
virtual environment and are critical in differentiating the
various VR technologies that exist, some of which will be
discussed in the following subsection.
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A. Some Virtual Reality Systems
Desktop systems provide the lowest level of immersion
and are therefore commonly referred as non-immersive
systems. These systems are developed to be used on a
simple desktop PC with good graphics cards and simple
monitor. They involve little or no interaction with the virtual system. Simple keyboard strokes or mouse can be
used to perform basic operations, though a 3D mouse and
joystick can be used for navigation and a SpaceBall or
data glove for enhanced interaction. Besides, 3D vision
can be achieved using shutters glasses. Since interaction is
limited and the users are not inside the virtual world, desktop VR systems offers little immersion and presence.
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IS VIRTUAL REALITY A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE IN AN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT?
A more relevant VR system to the study undertaken is
the PowerWall. This is a large high-performance and
high-resolution screen which is rear projected. It uses a
technique of polarized images and hence requires polarized glasses for viewing the 3D images. PowerWalls are
ideal for large group viewing and provides viewing of
virtual objects of larger scales compared to the desktop
systems. This is particularly important in this study as the
enlarged view provided by the PowerWall highlights important details, such as molecular information which
would otherwise be difficult to spot on a small desktop
monitor. This is significant in providing a higher level of
immersion as compared to the desktop VR systems.
The Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) [20]
is a far end VR technology which provides increased immersion and presence. Unlike the other VR systems described above, the CAVE provides a room-like surrounding virtual environment. Users of such a system are able to
walk into the environment. Navigation and manipulation
of virtual objects can be achieved using a special device
called a wand or gloves while 3D visualization requires
3D shutter glasses, which show the depth of virtual objects, hence 3D vision. In addition to successfully obscuring the user from the real world, the CAVE also provides
a good environment for group viewing and is commonly
used for collaborative projects. The CAVE is particularly
relevant to teaching of science subjects such as Chemistry
and Biology, where understanding of complex 3D information is critical.
B. Benefits of Virtual Reality in Teaching and Learning
VR provides various beneficial aspects for the enhancement of education and the most important of these is
that VR transcends the visual limitations of traditional
teaching methods. The human eyes have a total view between 160o to 208o and any technology that provides a
large field of view within or exceeding this range is likely
to increase the way that our mind processes what we see.
With a field of view of 360o, the CAVE is an excellent
way of increasing visual perception, which subsequently
increases understanding of what we see. In an educational
context, if students are able to perceive 3D images of abstract concepts, this will inevitably increase their perception and hence their understanding of these concepts.
Likewise, VR can increase understanding by providing
visualization on large scale. Both the PowerWall and the
CAVE are large and can highlight miniscule details which
would otherwise be unseen by the naked eye. This attribute of CAVEs and PowerWalls are important to particularly show molecular structures to students. Although projectors and microscopes can serve for the same purpose,
VR systems have the additional benefit that they can provide user interaction and manipulation with virtual objects. For instance, in a CAVE, students can walk around
in a molecular structure and rotate the virtual molecule in
different angles for better observations.
Besides, VR provides an intuitive way of learning by
focusing on the first person experience. This is particularly important in the learning process. Unlike “third person” experience, “first person” experience is subjective
[21]. For instance, students do not have to learn through
the experience of their teachers, they can instead acquire
knowledge by first person experiences. According to
Youngblut [22], experience helps students to retain and
generalize new knowledge in a more effective way. VR
iJET – Volume 6, Issue 1, March 2011
provides the right platform for immersing students into a
virtual environment and helps them to learn better. In fact,
immersion in a virtual environment is a new form of experience [23].
VR has positive cascading effects on students as the
first person experience is so intuitive and captivating and
it motivates students to further investigate on what they
are learning. This can enhance learning as students feel
more engaged in what they are doing and hence students
become more enthusiastic and learning is more fun. In
fact, student motivation increases when they are subjected
to interesting things to learn and new information [8]. The
high tech side of VR satisfies the needs of the new generations and motivates students to learn by curiosity, which
an intuitive way of learning for the new generations.
In the educational framework, VR also proves useful in
enhancing learning of concepts which cannot be observed
easily in the real world. While in some cases it would be
very hazardous to learn by doing, VR systems provide a
safer environment where students can repeatedly run
simulations without any hazardous consequences. This is
particularly helpful for training medical students to perform surgery. Safer simulations can also be done for situations where it would be costly to perform the actual simulation.
V. STUDIES CONDUCTED
Based on the various works carried out by other researchers, there was sufficient proof that VR can be beneficial in the learning process. The areas of interest in this
study are active experimentation learning and visual learning mode. The basic aim was to assess how well students
could remember concepts which they are aware of theoretically but have never seen / experienced before.
The study undertaken involves subjecting students of a
particular age group to various new technologies which
are helpful for a better understanding of what they have
learnt in school and to later on assess the extent to which
these students can remember these technologies. The age
group chosen for the study was the year 12 and 13 Biology and Chemistry students from a Reading local school,
Kendrick School since it specialises in Science and
Mathematics. This group of students has been chosen for
this preliminary study to emphasis Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and how
VR can enhance STEM learning.
The study itself consisted of a 3 hours visit divided into
demos. These were clearly categorized as VR (CAVE and
PowerWall) and biology laboratory (Microscopy and Imaging Unit, Mass Spectrometry, Structural Biology Unit /
Transcriptomics) demos, each presented individually in a
different room. Each laboratory and virtual reality demo
was kept to only 20 minutes, based on the fact that the
attention span of an average student is limited to approximately 15 minutes. The demonstrators were specific in not
speaking too technically to the students so that the students to do lose interest in what they were seeing. To
make students feel more comfortable, they were always
accompanied with their teachers who were helpful in relating the different laboratory equipments and molecular
visualizations to the various concepts the students have
encountered in their classes.
For the biology laboratories, different technologies
relevant to the subject group’s academic curriculum were
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IS VIRTUAL REALITY A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE IN AN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT?
chosen. These technologies provided the students with a
better understanding of mass spectroscopy, DNA sequencing, microscopy techniques and different experimental
phases.
The CAVE and PowerWall demos focused on biology
topics which were previously identified by the teachers as
most interesting and most helpful for the students to grasp
the theoretical concepts being taught at school and these
included protein structure and function. Shutter glasses
and wands were used for the CAVE for 3D visualization
and manipulation respectively, while students were given
polarized glasses to view the 3D molecules on the PowerWall. For the demos, Protein Data Bank (PDB) [24, 25]
files were converted to VRML for visualization and
Viegen [26] was used for visualization and manipulation
of the models. The CAVE demo included visualization of
Oxy-haemoglobin (PDB id: 1GZX), Deoxy human haemoglobin (PDB id: 1A3N) and the molecular architecture
of the rotary motor in ATP synthase from yeast mitochondria (PDB id: 1QO1). PowerWall demos included Insulin
(PDB id: 31NS), collagen (PDB id: 1BKV) and the molecular architecture of the rotary motor in ATP synthase
from yeast mitochondria (PDB id: 1QO1).
VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The evaluation consisted of a one page questionnaire
with concise questions on the day of the students’ visit to
get the students’ feedback on what technologies they preferred and to provide ground for future work. A post
evaluation was later on conducted two months after the
students’ visit. The purpose of the second questionnaire
was to assess how much the students could remember
from all the new technologies to which they were exposed.
The results of the first evaluation showed that 46% of
the students preferred the VR demos compared to only
37% who preferred the laboratory demos while 17% did
not have any preference, as depicted in Fig. 1. Likewise,
the post evaluation results, depicted in Fig. 2, showed that
a remarkable number of students were able to remember
the VR based demos compared to the different biology
based demos that they were given. 88% of students could
remember what they visualized in the CAVE and 48% for
the PowerWall compared to only 24%, 48% and 16% for
the Transcriptomics DNA sequencing, Mass Spectrometry
laboratory and Structural Biology Unit Crystallography
respectively.
Based on these results, two main conclusions can be
drawn. Firstly, experience helps in retention of knowledge
better, hence adding another proof to Youngblut’s [22]
concept. Also, the students are more interested with new
technologies, since these spark their interests.
VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper, a study of VR along with lab based technologies was presented, whereby school students were
introduced to these technologies as a learning aid. Results
showed that most students remembered what they saw in
the VR context and this concludes that VR is a more
memorable learning experience than the laboratory based
demonstrations for students. Since students were able to
recollect more what they saw in the CAVE and on the
PowerWall, this cutting edge technology can be fully
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Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Preference for different technologies among
study group (in percentage).
Technologies remembered by the study group (in
percentage).
tapped to enhance the learning process. These can be used
along with the traditional teaching methods.
Future work involves a more profound study involving
a larger group of students from various schools in Reading. The study will be extended for undergraduates students in the University of Reading, studying STEM subjects. This will give us a subject group large enough to
compare our present results with.
Further studies will focus more on usability and ergonomics. It is anticipated to add further utilities to the visualization in the CAVE and an in-house application is being built for this purpose. More subtle navigation and manipulation will also be developed for the CAVE application to allow a more intuitive learning experience for the
students.
We understand that the CAVE and PowerWall VR
technologies can be expensive and not accessible to students in the school, we are therefore planning on introducing the students to the Augmented Reality (AR) technology. This technology is simply a representation of a simulation in the real word, superimposing virtual images on
real objects. AR is more accessible, less costly and can be
used more frequently. With this technology, teachers will
be able to easily specify the molecular structures they
want to show to the class and can use see-through Head
Mounted Displays (HMDs) to visualize the structure.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank Dr. Catherine Crawford and
Mrs. Mary Heath from Kendrick School, Reading, for
their useful suggestions. We also wish to acknowledge the
contribution of all the students who collaborated in this
preliminary study.
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[24]
[25]
[26]
AUTHORS
T. Nadan is with the School of Systems Engineering,
University of Reading, Reading, UK (e-mail:
t.nadan@reading.ac.uk).
V.A. Alexandrov is with the School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading, Reading, UK (e-mail:
v.n.alexandrov@reading.ac.uk).
R. Jamieson graduated from the University of Reading,
Reading, UK.
K. Watson is the head of the Structural Biology Unit,
School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading,
Reading, UK (e-mail: k.a.watson@reading.ac.uk).
The work was partly funded by the University of Reading, UK.
Manuscript received 27 August 2010. Published as resubmitted by the
authors March 1st, 2011.
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