A cost-effective interactive 3D virtual reality system applied to military live firing training

The goal of the present study was to develop a cost-effective, man–machine digital interface, to improve students’ real-world firing range training, results, and achievement scores. A serious game-based learning environment was developed, integrating invisible laser infrared technology, 1:1 real-scale rifle guns with recoil effects, as well as 3D interactive virtual reality (VR) military training digital information content, to train students in military live firing. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed design, students’ performance, in terms of their learning achievement and learning motivation, was examined. One hundred and sixty high school students from Taiwan were divided into four individual groups of 40 students each, with one control group and three experimental groups (EG1, EG2, and EG3). The data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance. The results of this cost-effective 3D VR showed significantly better learning motivation, learning outcomes, and positive impacts on users’ actual live firing achievement scores.     

The incorporation of challenge enhances the learning of chronology from a virtual display

In earlier studies investigating the learning of historical chronology, virtual fly-throughs were used in which successive historical events were represented by images on virtual screens, placed in temporal-spatial sequence. Undergraduate students benefited more than school-age children from virtual 3D (compared to 2D) training, perhaps because they took on the task as a challenge. In this study a modification of the earlier paradigm was used, in a game-like format, in which successive screens (paintings, representing epochs of art history) had to be memorised and anticipated during training, the participant’s score accumulating on the screen. Compared with PowerPoint and verbal-semantic training conditions, VE training resulted in more rapid learning, better recall of associated semantic information and error-free recall of the picture sequence. Possible applications of this paradigm for teaching were discussed.     

A VR Playground for Learning Abstract Mathematics Concepts

Immersive virtual reality (VR) has attracted the attention of many researchers and educators who predicted that VR would considerably affect how learning and teaching are conducted. The research presented here aims to investigate how an interactive immersive virtual learning environment affects conceptual learning, specifically learning of fractions in mathematics. A virtual environment (VE) designed to simulate a playground was created and evaluated through empirical studies with 60 primary school students between the ages of 8 and 12. Results suggest that children who fully interacted with the VE were able to problem-solve but that there was no strong evidence of the expected conceptual change. Rather, it was the passive VR environment, where a virtual robot guided activity, that seemed to support student reflection and recall, leading to indications of sustained conceptual change.     

Using virtual environments to train firefighters

Using virtual environments for training and mission rehearsal gives US Navy firefighters an edge in fighting real fires. A test run on the ex-USS Shadwell measured the improvement. The results suggest that virtual environments serve effectively for training and mission rehearsal for shipboard firefighting. VE training provides a flexible environment where a firefighter can not only learn an unfamiliar part of the ship, but also practice tactics and procedures for fighting a fire by interacting with simulated smoke and fire without risking lives or property. These tests proved a successful first step in developing a new training technology for shipboard firefighting based on immersive virtual environments. The tests also indicated potential areas for improvement, requiring additional research. User interaction techniques for manipulating objects in VEs need further study, along with usability studies to determine their effectiveness or utility. Other areas that could enhance VE training systems include more natural and intuitive I/O devices such as 3D sound, speech and natural language input, integrated multimedia and hypermedia instruction, and multi user interaction     

Augmenting elementary school education with VR

At the University of Illinois at Chicago's Electronic Visualization Laboratory, we use virtual reality technology to complement real-world experiences rather than replace them. For more than two years, we've been deploying ImmersaDesk applications in a Chicago-area elementary school. We want to know whether these virtual environments (VEs) help children make sense of mathematics and scientific phenomena. If so, can educators adapt them to the realities of elementary school learning and teaching? Our experience indicates that VR can successfully augment scientific education as well as help to equalize the learning environment by engaging students of all levels     

Virtual reality in problem-based learning contexts: Effects on the problem-solving performance,vocabulary acquisition and motivation of English language learners

Learning a foreign language requires interaction with language input while involved in a task. Given that problem-based learning (PBL) offers hands-on application in realistic contexts, and that virtual reality (VR) enables learners to interact with multiple modalities of information, this study examines how the integration of VR technology into PBL contexts affects students' motivation for, problem-solving during, and vocabulary acquisition in learning English as a foreign language (EFL). A total of 84 engineering majors who enrolled in a course of English for specific purposes were randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a control group. Students in the experimental group participated in a VR-assisted PBL context, in which they were to view a PBL scenario using VR technology and then to create VR videos about solving the given problems. Those in the control group participated in a PBL context without the use of VR technology for viewing and solving the identical scenario. After the intervention, all the students wrote a problem-solving analysis, took a vocabulary knowledge test, completed a learning motivation questionnaire, and participated in individual interviews. The results showed that the students in the experimental group significantly outperformed those in the control group in terms of vocabulary acquisition, and were more motivated to learn English related to their future careers, whereas there was no significant difference in the problem-solving performance of the two groups. Implications of these findings highlight the value of engaging EFL learners in immersive environments for contextualized learning through the integrated use of VR and PBL.     

基于虚拟现实的炮兵分队射击训练仿真研究

由于实弹射击训练费用昂贵，部队组织训练难度增大，训练保障困难，为了满足部队作战训练的需要，该文在深入研究虚拟现实技术的基础上，建立了一套完整的炮兵分队射击训练仿真系统。该系统是基于MuhiGen Creator／Vega和c＋＋的虚拟现实仿真机制。该文对系统中涉及的火炮建模、炮兵分队射击训练模拟仿真和虚拟靶场环境生成等关键技术进行了较为深入的研究和探讨，为炮兵作战全程训练仿真系统开发提供理论依据。实践表明，系统能够达到射击训练的目的，并且有很好的沉浸感和交互性。     

如何培养与激励学生学习《高等数学》的动机

学习动机是学生掌握和探索知识的前提,学习动机的培养与激励是两个既有联系又有区别的概念。培养是激励的前提,激励的结果又进一步加强和培养了已有的学习动机,学习动机的培养与激励是密不可分的。结合数学的教学实践,就如何培养与激励学生学习《高等数学》的动机,谈几点建议。     

如何培养与激励学生学习《高等数学》的动机

学习动机是学生掌握和探索知识的前提．学习动机的培养与激励是两个既有联系又有区剐的概念。培养是激励的前提，激励的结果又进一步加强和培养了已有的学习动机，学习动机的培养与激励是密不可分的。结合数学的教学实践，就如何培养与激励学生学习《高等数学》的动机，谈几点建议。     

Applied virtual environments to support learning of social interaction skills in users with Asperger's Syndrome

Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is an autistic spectrum disorder characterised by normal to high IQ but with marked impairment in social skills. Successful social skills training appears to be best achieved either in situ or in role-play situations where users can explore different outcomes resulting from their social behaviour. Single user virtual environments (SVEs) provide an opportunity for users with AS to learn social interaction skills in a safe environment which they can visit as many times as they like.The use of game-like tasks can provide an incentive and can also be used to guide the user through progressive learning stages. Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) allow several users to interact simultaneously within the virtual environment, each taking different perspectives or role-play characters. Within the AS interactive project a series of SVEs and CVEs have been developed in collaboration with users and professional groups with an overall aim of supporting social skills learning. Initial evaluation studies have been carried out which have been used to both inform and refine the design of these virtual environments (VEs) as well as giving an insight into the understanding and interpretation of these technologies by users with AS.     

Human-systems interaction for virtual environment team training

Virtual environments are increasingly used to support collaborative activities and distance learning. However, few are designed to support students, instructors and simulations in multi-participant team training. This paper describes the Training Studio, a system for authoring, delivering and evaluating multi-participant team training in an immersed virtual environment. The Training Studio focuses on human-systems interaction, allowing multiple students to learn and perform team tasks. The Training Studio supports collaborative learning for either single or multi-participant activity. This is accomplished through the use of agents which are assigned to students to act as personal mentors or missing team members. Conducting team training within a virtual environment introduces complexities and issues unique to team training and multiple-participant virtual environments. This paper describes our approach to virtual environment team training, discussing issues confronted and resulting design considerations and implementations.     

基于AR-VR混合技术的儿童智力开发系统研究

传统的儿童智力开发大多采用观看图书或是视频的方式,存在信息表达单一、缺乏生动性、交互性差等缺陷。在儿童智力开发理论基础上,将增强现实技术（AR）与虚拟现实技术（VR）结合,基于Unity3D平台设计,开发出具有游戏式风格的儿童智力开发系统。VR技术用于开发虚拟漫游模块,通过沉浸式交互体验,培养儿童对身边事物的认知及观察能力。AR技术用于开发识图模块,通过3D的学习方式,为儿童传递更丰富更具体的学习体验。实验结果表明,AR-VR混合技术能构建出高度真实的学习环境,具有多感官交互效果,增强儿童对现实环境的感知和学习能力,相较于传统的儿童智力开发,该系统能帮助儿童获得更好的学习体验和交互方式,激发儿童的学习兴趣。     

Gamified learning through unity 3D in visualizing environments

Gamified learning has been proven to have the potential for promoting the quality of learning by better engaging students in the learning process. The goal of this study is to create an immersive 3D learning environment where a game is integrated into virtual exhibitions so as to inspire high-school students’ motivation and raise learning performance in humanities courses. In this paper, we developed a framework of virtual exhibitions by combining Unity game engine with a novel 3D JanusVR browser. The survey results from a group of students, whose ages range between 15 and 16, indicate that the proposed virtual exhibitions efficiently capture the attention of students and improve interests to learn history in comparison with traditional teaching and online webpages.

     

Reality-based interaction affecting mental workload in virtual reality mental arithmetic training

ABSTRACT

The concept of digital game-based learning (DGBL) evolves rapidly together with technological enhancements of virtual reality (VR) and smart phones. However, the mental workload (MWL) that VR-training applications demand and motivational qualities originating from user experience (UX) should be identified in order to create effective and enjoyable training/learning challenges that fit with individual users’ capabilities. This study examined the effects of reality-based interaction (RBI) and VR on measures of student motivation and MWL, in a mental arithmetic game for secondary school pupils. In a randomised controlled trial with sixty school children, a mental arithmetic game was tested with three different interaction and two different presentation methods – VR RBI, VR head-mounted-display tapping and tablet flick-gesture. Results found a significant effect of RBI on MWL but no differences in enjoyment of training were found between VR-experience and tablet training-experience. In fact, adding the gaming-context to the mental arithmetic task created an enjoyable, motivating experience regardless of presentation or interaction-style.     

Motivational and cognitive benefits of training in immersive virtual reality based on multiple assessments

The main objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a medium for delivering laboratory safety training. We specifically compare an immersive VR simulation, a desktop VR simulation, and a conventional safety manual. The sample included 105 first year undergraduate engineering students (56 females).  We include five types of learning outcomes including post‐test enjoyment ratings; pre‐ to post‐test changes in intrinsic motivation and self‐efficacy; a post‐test multiple choice retention test; and two behavioral transfer tests. Results indicated that the groups did not differ on the immediate retention test, suggesting that all three media were equivalent in conveying the basic knowledge. However, significant differences were observed favoring the immersive VR group compared to the text group on the two transfer tests involving the solving problems in a physical lab setting (d = 0.54, d = 0.57), as well as enjoyment (d = 1.44) and increases in intrinsic motivation (d = 0.69) and self‐efficacy (d = 0.60). The desktop VR group scored significantly higher than the text group on one transfer test (d = 0.63) but not the other (d= 0.11), as well as enjoyment (d =1.11) and intrinsic motivation (d =0.83).     

Development of a diagnostic system using a testing-based approach for strengthening student prior knowledge

Students learn new instructions well by building on relevant prior knowledge, as it affects how instructors and students interact with the learning materials. Moreover, studies have found that good prior knowledge can enable students to attain better learning motivation, comprehension, and performance. This suggests it is important to assist students in obtaining the relevant prior knowledge, as this can enable them to engage meaningfully with the learning materials. Tests are often used to help instructors assess students’ prior knowledge. Nevertheless, conventional testing approaches usually assign only a score to each student, and this may mean that students are unable to realize their own individual weaknesses. To address this problem, instructors can diagnose the test results to provide more detailed information to each student, but this is obviously a time-consuming process. Therefore, this study proposes a testing-based diagnosis system to assist instructors and students in diagnosing and strengthening prior knowledge before new instruction is undertaken. Furthermore, an experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in an interdisciplinary course, since several studies have indicated that students learn more and better in such courses when applying relevant prior knowledge to what they are learning. The experimental results show that the developed system is able to effectively diagnose students’ prior knowledge and enhance their learning motivation and performance on an interdisciplinary course. In addition, two diagnostic evaluations were also conducted to assess whether the diagnoses given by the system were consistent with the decisions of experts. The results demonstrate that the proposed system can effectively assist instructors and students in diagnosing and strengthening prior knowledge before new instruction is undertaken, since the diagnoses produced by the system were broadly consistent with those of experts.     

Developing a hands-on activity using virtual reality to help students learn by doing

This study combined virtual reality (VR) technology, the 6E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Engineer, Enrich, and Evaluate) model, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education to develop a hands-on activity aimed at helping students to achieve “learning by doing.” The participants were 162 tenth-grade students, divided into the Experimental Group (hands-on activity using VR technology) and the Control Group (hands-on activity via lectures). Using sequential analysis, this study investigated how the hands-on activity influenced the students' behavioral patterns in learning. The results showed that all of the students' learning performances and hands-on abilities were enhanced. Moreover, the students who used VR technology achieved both significantly better learning performances and hands-on abilities, indicating that VR might be able to help the students understand abstract scientific concepts and build mental models, which they used to internalize and organize knowledge structures. Furthermore, this study discovered that the students who learned using VR technology formed a cyclical learning pattern, starting with a group discussion (G), moving on to solving problems (S) and developing a product (D), and then going back to another group discussion. However, the students who learned via lectures produced a linear learning pattern in the order of G→S→D.     

The virtual playground: an educational virtual reality environment for evaluating interactivity and conceptual learning

The research presented in this paper aims at investigating user interaction in immersive virtual learning environments, focusing on the role and the effect of interactivity on conceptual learning. The goal has been to examine if the learning of young users improves through interacting in (i.e. exploring, reacting to, and acting upon) an immersive virtual environment (VE) compared to non-interactive or non-immersive environments. Empirical work was carried out with more than 55 primary school students between the ages of 8 and 12, in different between-group experiments: an exploratory study, a pilot study, and a large-scale experiment. The latter was conducted in a virtual environment designed to simulate a playground. In this “Virtual Playground,” each participant was asked to complete a set of tasks designed to address arithmetical “fractions” problems. Three different conditions, two experimental virtual reality (VR) conditions and a non-VR condition, that varied the levels of activity and interactivity, were designed to evaluate how children accomplish the various tasks. Pre-tests, post-tests, interviews, video, audio, and log files were collected for each participant, and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. This paper presents a selection of case studies extracted from the qualitative analysis, which illustrate the variety of approaches taken by children in the VEs in response to visual cues and system feedback. Results suggest that the fully interactive VE aided children in problem solving but did not provide a strong evidence of conceptual change as expected; rather, it was the passive VR environment, where activity was guided by a virtual robot, that seemed to support student reflection and recall, leading to indications of conceptual change.     

Learning in serious virtual worlds: Evaluation of learning effectiveness and appeal to students in the E-Junior project

The objective of this study is to present and to evaluate the E-Junior application: a serious virtual world (SVW) for teaching children natural science and ecology. E-Junior was designed according to pedagogical theories and curricular objectives to help children learn about the Mediterranean Sea and its environmental issues while playing. In this study, we present data about the E-Junior evaluation. A class in a serious virtual world (virtual group) was compared with a traditional type of class (traditional group) that contained identical learning objectives and contents but lacked a gaming aspect. Data collection consisted of quantitative and qualitative measures on a sample of 48 children. With regards to learning effectiveness, the results showed that the serious virtual world does not present statistically significant differences with the traditional type of class. However, students from the virtual group reported enjoying the class more, being more engaged, and having greater intentions to participate than students from the traditional group. The plausible explanation for this can be found in the qualitative data. The implications of these results and improvement proposals are also discussed in this work.     

How does desktop virtual reality enhance learning outcomes? A structural equation modeling approach

This study examined how desktop virtual reality (VR) enhances learning and not merely does desktop VR influence learning. Various relevant constructs and their measurement factors were identified to examine how desktop VR enhances learning and the fit of the hypothesized model was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results supported the indirect effect of VR features to the learning outcomes, which was mediated by the interaction experience and the learning experience. Learning experience which was individually measured by the psychological factors, that is, presence, motivation, cognitive benefits, control and active learning, and reflective thinking took central stage in affecting the learning outcomes in the desktop VR-based learning environment. The moderating effect of student characteristics such as spatial ability and learning style was also examined. The results show instructional designers and VR software developers how to improve the learning effectiveness and further strengthen their desktop VR-based learning implementation. Through this research, an initial theoretical model of the determinants of learning effectiveness in a desktop VR-based learning environment is contributed.