Immersive gamification for education: No additional benefit gained from wearing a VR headset

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) technologies have been increasingly gaining attention for use in a variety of applications. Yet, wider adoption is impeded by the discomfort of headsets, costs of adopting the technology, and the computational power required for rendering. Instead, much of VR's benefit can be achieved with simple a "desktop VR"application using a computer monitor. However, it is not known whether this semi-immersive VR approach is as effective. In this paper, we compare the experience of VR using a headset versus on the desktop, to test the effectiveness of an immersive 3D gamification approach for education of K through 12 grades and postsecondary students. In our survey of 73 general education college students from diverse backgrounds, we found no statistically significant gains from wearing a VR headset in learning computer programming concepts. To investigate further, we followed up with a secondary study of 46 middle school students, where we confirmed our findings. Additional attitude questions in the follow-up study showed that motion sickness and wearing glasses were the most important reasons for avoiding the headset. We conclude that while immersive gamification is effective for education, we recommend the inexpensive and more convenient desktop VR approach, which is also remote-learning friendly.