Here at VRFocus, we’ve long been advocates of using virtual reality (VR) for learning and other educational needs – why not take a look at our top 10 educational apps. So it wasn’t too surprising when the University of Warwick released the findings of a recent study that found VR to be more engaging than traditional learning methods like textbooks and video.
The study was all about gauging the effects that VR had on learning performance, emotion and engagement over the normal everyday methods used.
Three groups of students were assigned to three different types of learning: a fully immersive VR environment, traditional textbook-style materials, or 2D video of the VR environment. They all learnt about the same subject (biology) and had their learning, emotional response, and learning experience measured.
From the tests, researchers found that students had a higher positive emotional response to the VR learning method, followed by textbook, then video learning. Multiple students reported video learning as ‘basic’ and ‘boring’ whereas VR was described as ‘engaging’ and ‘made learning more exciting’ a press release notes.
Devon Allcoat, a PhD student from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick comments: “This study showed that VR could transform classroom teaching, as you could use VR to go for a walk with dinosaurs and increase engagement in the classroom and give pupils a more positive learning experience.”
The study helps to show that not only can VR help compliment textbook and video-based teaching it can also advance those teaching methods. Students can cost-effectively enter virtual environments that would be impossible to replicate otherwise.
You’ll find the University of Warwick paper here. For the latest updates on educational VR, keep reading VRFocus.
via Mint VR