Virtual reality for early education: A study

Abstract

This paper investigates the use of Virtual Reality (VR) as a tool for cultural heritage learning, using St Andrews Cathedral as the subject matter. As part of a module focused on local history, first year secondary school pupils in a school in the town of St Andrews took part in virtual tours of the Cathedral as it stood in the 14th Century using the Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, Oculus Rift, computer screen and Xbox controller, and answered questions aimed to elicit their experiences with the various systems. The system design and implementation is presented and the findings, observations and lessons learnt from the study are discussed.