Abstract
Current educational presentation software used in STEM education fail to maximize student engagement and comprehension. Mixed reality presentation is one specific type of digital presentation software that has shown to significantly improve student engagement and comprehension. In this paper, we describe a pilot study on adult scientists which evaluates the usage of an integrated mixed reality presentation software in the Zyndo platform as an enhanced alternative to Adobe PDFs. A group of adult scientists (N = 20), with higher education of at least a bachelor’s degree, from an academic research center at Harvard Medical School were randomized and asked to read two articles (one on Immunology and the other on Bioengineering) presented through either the mixed reality presentation or PDFs. Our results indicate that participants improved in nearly all metrics for engagement (ranging from + 4 to 51% improvement depending on engagement metric and subject matter) when viewing the mixed reality presentation over the traditional PDFs for both articles. Specifically, the participants demonstrated improved comprehension of the scientific content and time spent viewing the presentation in a content-dependent manner. Therefore, 3D mixed reality environments can potentially be applied to enhance student learning in STEM fields, particularly Biomedical Engineering in both on-line and in person classroom settings.
Highlights
Science textbooks have traditionally included more information about inventions or products as opposed to science processes,[14,15] and often times, the way the information is presented makes it challenging for students to understand, especially if they have low reading skills.[8]
A t test was performed on the raw Immunology engagement and enjoyment data, obtaining a value of 0.00053. This supported our hypothesis that the Mixed reality (MR) environment would significantly improve users’ engagement while viewing presentations, which has been shown to increase overall learning outcomes related to ease of use, amount of effort exerted, and enjoyment
Comprehension is evaluated using measurements after content is absorbed through recall tests, summaries of information, and answering questions.[24]
Summary
Science textbooks have traditionally included more information about inventions or products as opposed to science processes,[14,15] and often times, the way the information is presented makes it challenging for students to understand, especially if they have low reading skills.[8]. More schools have started incorporating digital presentations in classroom settings. While current software such as Adobe PDF complement traditional STEM education, they are comprised of static 2D elements and often mimic nondigital teaching techniques. Basic text and figure layout structure in academic lessons provide students less motivation to dive deeper into scientific content thereby affecting overall academic performance.[18]. This aspect turns lectures into monologues and affects student engagement levels and comprehension abilities.[32]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
