 |
| Photo credit: Torley |
Paper summary
{Paper summaries at designer eLearning aim to precis research papers in education, design and technology in plain English, highlighting those findings that apply specifically to Learning Interface Design.}
Mikropoulos, Tassos A., and Antonis Natsis. 2011. "Educational virtual environments: A ten-year review of empirical research (1999–2009)." Computers & Education 56(3): 769-780. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.10.020 [Accessed January 6, 2011].
Mikropoulas et al. did the hard work: 56 papers over 10 years. these papers have come from journals, symposia and conference proceedings.
They found that most examples of virtual environments are...
- in the Maths and Sciences,
- exploit only the visual aspects of Virtual Environments (rather than audio for example)
- run from a desktop computer with a keyboard and mouse (as opposed to with immersive rooms or specialized equipment)
- based (explicitly or implicitly) on a constructivist model of learning.
"The studies present real world, authentic tasks that enable context and content dependent knowledge construction. They also provide multiple representations of reality by representing the natural complexity of the world."
"Little can yet be concluded regarding the retention of the knowledge acquired in [virtual environments]. Longitudinal studies are necessary, and we believe that the main outcome of this study is the future research perspectives it brings to light."
Virtual Learning Environments defined
Examples of VLE's
According to the survey's findings, most VLE's are created for Math and Science which the authors suggest is due to the characteristics of these fields that make them particularly well suited.
"In most of the cases, science and mathematics concern space and time scales far from everyday experience, unobservable phenomena, abstract concepts, difficult to understand physical laws and magnitudes. Such topics also have an experimental nature and require spatial abilities and high order thinking skills. All the above make the construction of mental models difficult. Computer-based learning environments and especially dynamic models, simulations and visualizations contribute to conceptual change, development of thinking skills, promotion of cognitive development. All the educational subjects of the reviewed articles are based on the difficulties presented above, where VR seems to be a strong educational tool."
"Most of the reviewed articles concerning social sciences again exploit inaccessible time and space scales and incorporate their topic in spatial representations. History and culture are popular topics, where authors represent ancient cities and buildings. Narration, writing, educational drama and various topics are also subjects where spatial representations support the learning environments."
Examples include navigating inside an atom, inside the solar system, and within a city at another time in history.
Unique advantages of VLE's
The authors propose that the features made possible by the technological characteristics of virtual reality which contribute to positive learning outcomes are:
- first-order experiences (you can experience things, even dangerous ones, directly/ first hand)
- natural semantics (you can manipulate real world objects intuitively instead of working with symbolic representations)
- size (you can experience things that are out of scale, like an atom or the solar system)
- transduction
- reification (you can take an abstract concept and make it experienceable/perceptable)
- autonomy (you can control the action/ narritive)
- presence (you get a sense of being present in an authentic experience)
Based on the above characteristics, the authors propose five "learning affordances" of VLEs (or types of learning VLEs are particularly suited to support):
- spatial knowledge representation
- experiential learning
- engagement
- contextual learning
- collaborative learning.
They add that they believe these imply the seven principles of constructivism.
Presence
The authors cite the importance of a sense of presnce for learning which VR environments have hte capacity to provide in a more complete and authentic way. At a general level, they also mention that at least 12 out of the 53 studies they reviewed positively connect presence with learning."the sense of presence that students feel in the virtual environments is of major importance in the learning process. This is because the sense of presence enhances 'first hand' experiences and 'first-person psychological activity occurring when people interact directly with worlds, whether real or virtual'."...However they go on to caution that there is a lack of research on actual VLEs and on whether or not this actually ends up producing better learning results in the Virtual context.
Whitelock, Romano, Jelfs, and Brna (2000) in their early experiments on perfect presence in virtual learning environments suggest that a high degree of presence “is very motivating but could well take up too much of the users’ attention and produce a cognitive overload when it comes to understanding conceptual notions”. In the same article the authors note that social presence enhances a feeling of team work. In 2003, Selverian and Hwang in their review on presence and learning (17 research studies), report that “most of the research has failed to associate spatial and social presence with levels of learning objectives and learning achievement”.
Multiple Representations
Another well understood educational strategy is the provision of multiple representations of a concept. The authors found that almost all the VLEs reviewd provide multiple representations of reality in a variety of ways such as via different viewpoints, haptic augmentation and force feedback, multimedia content, and collaborative strategies. For example, one study provides multiple representations via different viewpoints by giving learners the option to view planetary phenomena from a spaceship and from the Sun.
Engagement
They also noted that a student could be engaged in the VLE by exploring the different worlds, avatars, and quests but fail to engage in the learning tasks. So there is evidence students find interaction in VLEs engaging, but it is noted that it is not necessarily the learning tasks in the VLEs that they are finding engaging.
Social environments - the presence of others
The authors did find evidence in the research that the presence of others in the virtual space had an impact on learning. These virtual others could be other participants or they could be computer-generated avatars that live in the environment providing new perspectives: "Findings show that collaboration and social negotiation are not only limited to the participants of an EVE, but exist between participants and avatars, offering a new dimension to computer assisted learning."
Interfaces to Virtual Worlds
It is familiarity with the interaction and with the interface that is more important than aiming at closer to real-world interaction. While users may have found things like interaction with the use of a glove detrimentally novel in these studies, it is because they had never used one before, and its important to remember that times are continually changing. With the advent of interaction models made familiar by systems like the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox Kinect, these research results will most certainly begin to vary. The familiarity principle will still apply, but the results may show preference changes to different types of interface controllers, which again would probably vary by age group.
The authors note that there is a predictable exception to the preference for the mouse and keyboard when it comes to health and physical education.
"games with standard interfaces such as keyboard, mouse and joysticks are effective in favouring knowledge acquisition, whereas games with exertion interfaces such as motion platforms, motion tracking cameras and haptic devices are appealing, motivational and effective in producing fitness and health benefits. "
With regards to Virtual Environments that inhabit an immersive space like a CAVE (rather than a computer screen), the authors report that head mounted displays combined with an egocentric representation model were more effective than a wall projection system.
"Three studies surveyed have concluded that immersion compared to a desktop system has a great advantage only when the content to be learned is complex, 3D and dynamic, on the condition that students do not need to communicate with the “outside” world."
Constructivism
The authors also applied the seven principles of constructivism as presented by Jonassen (1994):
- Provide multiple representations of reality – avoid oversimplification of instruction by representing the natural complexity of the world
- Focus on knowledge construction not reproduction
- Present authentic tasks (contextualizing rather than abstracting instruction)
- Provide real world, case based learning environments, rather than predetermined instructional sequences
- Foster reflective practice
- Enable context, and content, dependent knowledge construction
- Support collaborative construction of knowledge through social negotiation, not competition among learners for recognition.
Unique challenges of VLE's
A lack of research and the fact that we are still, in amny ways, in the early stages of learning about how to use these worlds most effectively, remains another challenge. The authors note that it is difficult to do research on the effectiveness of the use of VLEs because there are always so many variables that may effect learning outcomes.
This leads to the design variable. As an interface designer for education, I would argue that another limitation is the general lack of design expertise on the teams creating educational prototypes. These worlds often originate in computer science or education departments. They often have no funding for a professionally designed front-end. A lack of design matters for all the reasons this blog exists, because it effects the learning experience.
Conclusions
The studies of the last 10 years show VLEs have features that support many learning strategies and that they have the capacity to provide first-order experiences in environments that would otherwise be impossible in the real world, either because they are abstract, dangerous or expensive. A high level of both presence and engagement have been reported with the use of VLEs. These are generally supportive of the learning experience. Much more research is still needed to provide evidence for the effectiveness of VLEs for various scenarios, fields and purposes.
More research needed
learners can participate in worlds that would be dangerous or impossibke in real life, like navigating an
atom, a disaster site or a solar system, that VLEs are a dream come true. Also, of the small number of studies that have been published, the vast majority show positive learning outcomes. But the research is scarce due to the difficulty in isolating the influence of the environment itself from all other vairables.
Much of the information in this survey paper is based on conclusions drawn from what we know about educational theory and how people learn. They are logical hypotheses about what is likely to work well about VLEs based on how they can technologically support things that we know are good for supprting learning (like multiple representations and first-order experiences). There is still not a whole lot of evidence, however, to show these hypotheses actually prove true in practice - whether the theory plays out over time in multiple circumstances. We know first-order experiences are good for learning and we know VLE's support first-order experiences, but do first-order experiences in VLE's support learning effectively? There is simplly still a lot of research to be done.
"Few are the studies that incorporate systems promoting intuitive interactivity, and much research is needed"
"Researchers in these first steps of VR educational applications argue on the usefulness of VR as an educational tool, although evaluations of certain EVEs do not exist yet."
“most of the research has failed to associate spatial and social presence with levels of learning objectives and learning achievement”.
As with any technology, the research on VLEs seems to suggest that the use of the technology should be lead by the pedagogical design rather than the other way around. Does the design call for characteristics that only VLEs can provide? Do students stand to gain from the characteristics that are unique to the 3D world more than they would with a 2D method?
A need for interface designers to play a part
If the big advantages of VLEs are the unique features available only in these environments, then, as designers, we should think about how we would enhance and build on these features through the interface design.
And, of course, as with any technology, the question is more one of how you use it and when you use it rather than broadly is it or isn't it good for learning.
