Supporting active learning through immersive mixed and virtual reality technologies
Abstract
As the world economies continue to grow, natural resources are being used at such high rates that may negatively affect future generations. One of the issues is that the general population may know some solutions for reducing energy consumption, for example in transportation, but few may know about sustainable food production and sustainability concepts in a wider context. It can be challenging to create learning tools and learning content to suit the learning needs of the general population.
This master thesis explores mixed (MR) and virtual (VR) reality technologies as a support tool for learning sustainability concepts through active learning strategies. The research investigates design choices and their effectiveness in creating immersive learning experiences as well as the user’s perceived experiences of presence and motivation to learn. A human-centered design approach is adopted to create a ‘sustainable future city’ use case focusing on learning concepts of sustainable horticulture such as vertical farming, hydroponic-, aeroponic- and aquaponic systems.
The research investigates the state-of-the-art of MR and VR technologies, and looks into perceived levels of presence and motivation in an immersive experience that combines MR and VR as one application. Human-centered design activities taken include interviews with five randomly sampled participants to validate requirements, interests in topics, and technology choices. Further on, design and development tasks were carried out to develop a functional prototype running on Meta Quest Pro head mount device. A mixed method approach was taken for the user testing and evaluation of two design iterations. That involved user observation in UiA’s usability laboratory, questionnaire and in-depth interviews with 10 participants. This study’s findings indicate that key design decisions for the immersive experience included guided exploration, realistic visualization, and hand gesture interactions. Further, there were positive outcomes on both observation and feedback from users as high levels of presence, fun, and interest in the topic were distinguished. Some main specific findings were that while most participants were observed to experience presence as expected, one participant indicated that they had a low sense of presence and were distracted by the environment and unfamiliarity with the technology. This suggests that users can feel low levels of presence even when they are fully involved in the virtual environment, because of the cognitive process required to experience presence. Further regarding motivation, all participants stated they preferred the immersive experience over traditional means such as textbooks, as it made learning more fun and interesting in an active way.
The study was limited in scope and sample size, nevertheless it was concluded that overall the design decisions made for the use case were at a large extent effective in supporting active learning, and the designed tool can be easily used by the general population.