Teaching students using immersive Virtual Reality

This preliminary work will ultimately feed into the centrally-managed DigiLabs initiative – utilising the state-of-the art equipment and facilities being purchased/ developed. Specifically, for our work, we have utilised the first wave of VR headsets (20 x Pico 4) that enable students to experience compelling scenarios as an avatar within different virtual worlds.

A central focus has been on how students’ learning outcomes can either be enhanced or expanded upon through the fundamental affordances of immersive technology. Specifically, it is critical to consider the use of VR for teaching activities that in the real-world would either be dangerous (physically and/or psychologically), impossible, counter-productive or expensive (the so-called DICE criteria*).

Two examples from our teaching can illustrate how we have applied DICE to significantly enhance the learning experiences and engagement of our students:

Using XR to teach empathy

We need to teach our students of design to better understand their end users - especially those users who might have considerably different perspectives to their own (e.g. due to visual/mobility impairments).

VR offers the potential to ‘step into another person’s shoes’ in a controlled and relatively safe environment. Moreover, it allows an exploration of empathy for future worlds, not yet available. In teaching sessions conducted recently, we enabled undergraduate design students to experience a challenging/dangerous world using VR headsets where they had to undertake common tasks (cross a busy road, use a cashpoint, read signs).

During these activities, students embodied a variety of bespoke ‘impairment avatars’ – wheelchair user, cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration. Surveys indicated our students had greater empathy for disabled users following the VR experience. Qualitatively, students also demonstrated a greater breadth and depth of insights into the needs of others following their immersive experience, ‘While I had guessed the problems [disabled people] may face the extent and effects of these problems are far greater than I realised”. 

Teaching team skills

Students often have negative attitudes towards team working, especially when it relates to an assignment – which can then impact on their overall learning experience. VR has the potential to provide a strong emotional bond between team members prior to a semester-long group work project.

Recently, several of our user-experience design postgraduate students attended a session having just formed groups for coursework – and had to solve an exciting, fantastical maze challenge that required considerable team skills in strategy-setting, communication, power sharing, etc.

Survey data showed students felt much more confident in their teammates’ abilities following the VR session and felt more connected to them, “Everyone [in my team] was working hard to ensure that everybody keeps up”. Moreover, having solved the maze they were excited about the prospect of working with their peers for their projects, “Interaction with my teammates [in the maze] was amazing”, “[the session] was fascinating and I’m looking forward to learning how to design for this new technology with my teammates”.

There were some practicalities in the use of novel VR technology for the teaching sessions, given that most students admitted to minimal/no experience with a VR headset. Nevertheless, we have now developed a robust protocol to ensure students are quickly focused on the learning outcomes of the teaching session, rather than the capabilities and excitement of the technology itself.

* Bailenson, J. (2018). Experience on demand: What virtual reality is, how it works, and what it can do. WW Norton & Company.