Cross-Cultural Design. Applications in Cultural Heritage, Creativity and Social Development

Abstract

It is difficult for children to learn scientific disciplines like mathe- matics, but virtual reality (VR) headsets offer more direct and effective learning methods for children. This paper represents an exploratory study of the appli- cation of VR in children’s education. We observed ten children as they played with four educational VR applications. Fourteen experts, including six teachers, were interviewed to explore whether and how VR can help children to overcome learning difficulties in different subjects. Based on the insights from the user study and expert interviews, we propose a series of design guidelines for edu- cational VR applications. For example, children seek a sense of achievement when learning mathematics; therefore, applications should have a hierarchy of different difficulty levels with which the children can practice, make progress, and experience success. Keywords: