Influence of Immersive Virtual Reality on Cognitive and Affective Learning Goals

Abstract

AbstractWith the increasing prevalence of immersive virtual reality (VR) systems in educational contexts, it is important to understand how the use of VR impacts cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning processes and learning outcomes. Proponents argue that VR can improve the quality of learning by stimulating individual learning processes to generate interest and motivate them to learn. Others claim that immersive media such as VR disrupts learning by increasing distraction, which leads to a decrease in cognitive performance and a reduction in acquired knowledge. To collect evidence on how VR influences learning, we performed a quantitative study. One group received information (about environment protection) before and after being immersed in two different VR applications, which incorporate content-related informational context. The second group was presented the same information but without the VR experience. We found that cognitive learning was better for the participants without the complementary VR experience, as they remembered information better. However, affective learning was better for the participants with the complementary VR experience. One week after the presentation of the content, participants with the complementary VR experiences had an increased awareness of threats to nature as well as the commitment to act environmentally conscious. Our findings, thus, support voices stating that VR can support learning, as well as those arguing against it. Whether the use of VR is supportive depends on the learning goals.KeywordsVirtual RealityAffective LearningEmpathy