1 VR in Education

This project was completed and tested when I was previously in the education program

here at tech last semester. I worked with students to test using Virtual Reality in classrooms and

how it could give more effective forms of learning for some students.

Background

This project included a literature review that pulled from three different sources. All three

sources show different examples of using VR in a classroom setting and how effective it was for

different learners. The goal is to find a new way to get kids motivated and give them something

fun, but effective to use when learning different subjects.

Research Method and Procedures

For this project I was unable to be in an actual classroom setting to carry out the

experiment, but I was able to go to the Russellville Boys and Girls Club and let them use the VR

headsets. I first gave the students an interview about different subject areas or topics that they are

confused about or things they would like to learn more about. The next time I met with them,

they took a quiz relating to the subjects they told me about in the interview. After reading

through the interviews of my 6 students, I started researching different apps I could download for

them to start using and graded the quizzes they took. After a couple of days of them learning

how to use the VR headset, I finally was able to get them on different learning apps based on the

answers they gave in their interview about what they needed/wanted to learn about. We did this

for about a month, and then I gave students the same quiz they had taken before to see if they

had learned anything from using the headset.

Findings

After giving the students the second quiz, I found that they really had not learned a whole

lot more from using the VR headsets. The quiz results were essentially the same as the first time
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around. I think that if there was more free access to learning apps, and more apps in general for

learning, I would have had a better outcome.

Recommended Action Plan

As much as I would love for students to be able to use VR headsets in the classroom as

an alternative form of learning, I do not think it would be effective. In the future, when they add

more apps to this platform, I think someone should really try this method again. The students

were much more interested in learning about the things they were struggling with or what they

wanted to know more about.

Resources

D., Laverick, Parquette, K., & Silbert, S. M. (2020, December 22). VIRTUAL REALITY

EXPERIENCES AS AN INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY FOR PROMOTING

COMPREHENSION. Retrieved from

https://libcatalog.atu.edu:2315/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=aktechuniv&id=GALE|A664545122&v=2.1

&it=r

Makransky, G., Petersen, G. B., & Klingenberg, S. (2020, May 10). Can an immersive

virtual reality simulation increase students' interest and career aspirations in science? Retrieved

from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjet.12954

Park, H. (2019, January 02). Using virtual reality in the classroom: Preservice teachers'

perceptions of its use as a teaching and learning tool. Retrieved from

https://libcatalog.atu.edu:2786/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=6302cd2d-71d6-4151-941d-8f45ce

ebc581@sdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=1355

87597&db=egs
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