Presenting in Front of a Virtual Audience: A Synthesis of Research in Higher Education

Abstract

While previous studies in educational sciences emphasized the essence of feedback on developing students' oral presentation competence, it remains questionable how innovative technologies can successfully deliver high-quality feedback on such a competence. Recent experimental studies in this field revealed the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) for increasing oral presentation competence and diminishing presentation anxiety. Due to both technological and educational developments, VR systems facilitate the translation of quantitative data into qualitative feedback messages, relating to presentation delivery aspects. This challenges current presentation curricula if the learner is able to individually interpret automatized and personalized feedback messages after rehearsing in front of virtual audiences. As a consequence, it questions to what extent teachers' roles might change over time. This chapter synthesizes recent studies into a set of educational design principles for effective use of VR, discusses practical implications, and provides a future research agenda on this topic for the higher education context.