A virtual reality education success story?
Although the media’s current tech obsession is AI, it wasn’t long ago that virtual reality (VR) was getting all the hype as the next big thing.
A recent post from the On EdTech newsletter by Phil Hill & Associates, referencing several articles about the use of VR at Arizona State University as well as his own visit, suggests that at least one implementation of VR seems to be working—but with a major twist. This is a post-secondary example, but the main point applies to K-12 as well.
The newsletter quotes an Inside Higher Ed article:
“Arizona State University had a problem. Many students arrived on campus eager to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects. But by the end of their first year at the university, nearly half switched to non-STEM majors or left the university altogether, according to Annie Hale, executive director of the Action Lab at Arizona State. Though that statistic tracked with the national trend, campus leaders were concerned that these students were no longer on track for high-paying STEM jobs.
(SNIP)
To address the problem, Arizona State turned to an unlikely source: Hollywood. Dreamscape Immersive, a virtual reality company co-founded by an individual responsible for blockbuster movies such as WarGames and Men in Black, partnered with the university to create Dreamscape Learn. The new educational company revamped Biology 181—the university’s introductory course. In the new version, which was offered first in the spring of 2022 alongside the original version, immersive VR experiences replaced traditional labs.”
The result? According to Phil Hill’s post, “students across the board in the VR lab version outperformed students in the traditional lab setting;” more details on the results are available here and here in two separate studies.
So should the headline be “VR transforms education”? Not yet, because here’s the plot twist…again quoting Phil:
“This is a pedagogy-driven course redesign initiative that happens to use VR, effectively, in a narrative format.”
The course design and re-design had multiple elements, including:
“newly designed BIO 181 lab curriculum that leveraged best pedagogical practices with the Dreamscape narratively driven virtual reality (VR) experiences”
“new weekly TA training process” and, in the first study
“differences in the pedagogical designs of the [VR] and [non-VR] lab courses.”
Finally, note that the VR experience totaled ten minutes once per week, after which students “attend[ed] a three-hour in-person lab with a class size of no more than 24 students.” That is in addition to lectures. The VR element, however important it may have been, was a very small percentage of total time in the course.
Digital learning advocates often make statements along the lines of “you can’t just layer technology onto an existing classroom.” The ASU virtual reality story explains one example of the details behind that statement, while also demonstrating how a technology could easily have good, bad, or no effect. It all depends on the implementation, and often the implementation goes far beyond the technology.