Virtual reality for fire safety training: Influence of immersion and sense of presence on conceptual and procedural acquisition

Abstract

A fire can have serious economic and human consequences. However, in many cases, rapid intervention and appropriate behavior can significantly reduce this threat. For this it is important that people are properly trained. Faced with the economic, ecological and organizational requirements and constraints linked to fire safety training, virtual training environments appear to be a judicious alternative to traditional training. However, before committing companies to invest in expensive devices, it is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of such devices. The literature is rich and divided on this subject, and it appears that certain characteristics of the system and of the learners are decisive. In this context, the objective of our work was to study the effects of immersion, the feeling of presence as well as the interaction between these 2 factors on the performance of conceptual and procedural learning. Certain variables were also controlled such as gender, tendency to immersion, previous experience in computers and video games. Our work shows that immersion promotes procedural but not conceptual learning, and that neither the sense of presence, nor the interaction between immersion and the sense of presence affect these two types of learning in our training task. Apart from the knowledge of fire which potentiates the effect of immersion on procedural learning, the variables considered in our study (computer experience, video game experience and genre) had no impact on performance. Understanding the impact of the technical device or the characteristics of users on conceptual and procedural learning is a major challenge in helping trainers to develop pedagogical devices in order to better exploit the opportunities offered by new technological approaches.