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1. Museum-based Virtual Reality and Middle Schoolers Interest and Engagement in Science.

   Ramsey, R; Mao, M.; Anderson, J.; Hamm, J.V. (October 2021, SITE Interactive Conference)

   This study explores the impact of an immersive VR experience and middle school students’ interest in and engagement with science. Thirteen students completed a VR experience with two components: a virtual laboratory and a game. Afterwards, students were interviewed and asked to describe their experiences. Students consistently reported the VR experience to be enjoyable and engaging. Moreover, the VR experience seemed to trigger a situational interest in science among the students, with some evidence to suggest that this interest could be sustained and developed in the long term. Implications for research and practice are discussed. 

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2. Empeiría: Powering future education training systems with device agnostic web-vr apps.

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49698-2_19  

   Miller, M. E. (January 2021, Virtual, Augmented and mixed reality: Industrial and everyday life applications)

   null (Ed.)

   This paper presents Empeiría, which uses cutting-edge technologies and novel virtual reality systems to enhance future in-class education training. Empeiría incorporates JavaScript, WebGL, WebVR, and powerful web graphics engines like Babylon.js to create immersive training experiences. It demonstrates a useful application of computer science concepts and increases the dissemination of edge technologies across academic disciplines. Most importantly, Empeiría improves education technology and professional training through the creation of two major software products; an immersive experience editing system (Empeiría-E) and an immersive experience viewing system (Empeiría-V). We show how these virtual reality systems can lead to more effective training and improve our understanding of trainees. 

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3. Shrink or grow the kids? Scale cognition in an immersive virtual environment for K-12 summer camp

   https://doi.org/10.1109/VRW58643.2023.00203  

   Wu, Linfeng; Chen, Karen B.; Sekelsky, Brian; Peterson, Matthew; Harper-Gampp, Tyler; Delgado, Cesar (March 2023, 2023 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW))

   Virtual reality (VR) has been widely used for education and affords embodied learning experiences. Here we describe: Scale Worlds (SW), an immersive virtual environment to allow users to shrink or grow by powers of ten (10X) and experience entities from molecular to astronomical levels; and students’ impressions and outcomes from experiencing SW in a CAVE (Figure 1) during experiential summer outreach sessions. Data collected from post-visit surveys of 69 students, and field observations, revealed that VR technologies: enabled interactive learning experiences; encouraged active engagement and discussions among participating students; enhanced the understanding of size and scale; and increased interest in STEM careers. 

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4. Virtual Reality in Fluid Power Education: Impact on Students’ Perceived Learning Experience and Engagement

   https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14070764  

   Azzam, Israa; El_Breidi, Khalil; Breidi, Farid; Mousas, Christos (July 2024, Education Sciences)

   The significance of practical experience and visualization in the fluid power discipline, highly tied to students’ success, requires integrating immersive pedagogical tools for enhanced course delivery, offering real-life industry simulation. This study investigates the impact of using virtual reality (VR) technology as an instructional tool on the learning and engagement of 48 mechanical engineering technology (MET) students registered in the MET: 230 Fluid Power course at Purdue University. An interactive VR module on hydraulic grippers was developed utilizing the constructivist learning theory for MET: 230 labs, enabling MET students to explore light- and heavy-duty gripper designs and operation through assembly, disassembly, and testing in a virtual construction environment. A survey consisting of a Likert scale and short-answer questions was designed based on the study’s objective to evaluate the students’ engagement and perceived attitude toward the module. Statistical and natural language processing (NLP) analyses were conducted on the students’ responses. The statistical analysis results revealed that 97% of the students expressed increased excitement, over 90% reported higher engagement, and 87% found the VR lab realistic and practical. The NLP analysis highlighted positive themes such as “engagement”, “valuable experience”, “hands-on learning”, and “understanding”, with over 80% of students endorsing these sentiments. These findings will contribute to future efforts aimed at improving fluid power learning through immersive digital reality technologies, while also exploring alternative approaches for individuals encountering challenges with such technologies. 

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5. Longitudinal Effects in the Effectiveness of Educational Virtual Field Trips

   https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331211062925  

   Zhao, Jiayan; Wallgrün, Jan_Oliver; Sajjadi, Pejman; LaFemina, Peter; Lim, Kenneth_Y_T; Springer, Jan_P; Klippel, Alexander (December 2021, Journal of Educational Computing Research)

   Virtual and immersive virtual reality, VR and iVR, provide flexible and engaging learning opportunities, such as virtual field trips (VFTs). Despite its growing popularity for education, understanding how iVR compared to non-immersive media influences learning is still challenged by mixed empirical results and a lack of longitudinal research. This study addresses these issues through an experiment in which undergraduate geoscience students attended two temporally separated VFT sessions through desktop virtual reality (dVR) or iVR, with their learning experience and outcomes measured after each session. Our results show higher levels of enjoyment and satisfaction as well as a stronger sense of spatial presence in iVR students in both VFTs compared to dVR students, but no improvement in learning outcomes in iVR compared to dVR. More importantly, we found that there exists a critical interaction between VR condition and repeated participation in VFTs indicating that longitudinal exposure to VFTs improves knowledge performance more when learning in iVR than through dVR. These results suggest that repeated use of iVR may be beneficial in sustaining students’ emotional engagement and compensating the initial deficiency in their objective learning outcomes compared to other less immersive technologies. 

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