Online Explorative Study on the Learning Uses of Virtual Reality Among Early Adopters

Summary

This article describes the profile of Spanish early adopters of virtual reality and their interests and preferences regarding learning and educational applications for this technology. To this aim, we designed an online questionnaire and interviewed 117 users of the main virtual reality forum on the Internet.

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has shown great educational potential because it makes it possible to simulate any desired situation or event, thus playing an important role in addressing current educational challenges. Despite the unlimited learning possibilities that VR may offer, unless users are willing to apply virtual devices to education, the investment of time, money, and effort will be fruitless. It is therefore crucial to assess the educational interest of the first generation of VR users and to identify their current needs. To this end, in this study we designed an online questionnaire and applied it through the SaaS (Software as a service) of a private server. The sample consisted of 117 early VR adopters recruited via a main portal of communication and information technologies in Spain. In order to engage participants, we posted a thread in the main forum, which is dedicated to the advances and potential uses of VR. Once the responses were gathered, we analyzed the relationship between 12 variables (mean contrasts with Snedecor's F, and contingency analysis with chi-square and Sommer's d). The results showed that the current profile of a VR user is a male over 35 years old, with university studies, and who has purchased his viewer recently (<1 year). As for the learning and teaching applications that these users were interested in, only 13.7% of the participants in this study use VR for educational purposes, although 28.2% were interested, indicating that perhaps the lack of applications or learning experiences may be hampering the use of VR within education. Almost half of the early adopters surveyed would like to learn using VR technology and are somehow optimistic about the relationship between VR and education, particularly those who are younger.

Introduction

Information and communication technologies are evolving rapidly to make it easier for human beings to communicate and relate to each other, and the distance and time that someone needs to contact and interact with someone else is reduced. However, this connection, when made through technology, is still much poorer and limited than face-to-face contact¹.

VR provides a major advance in simulating physical experiences, allowing us to interact within a computer environment that feels real, giving us a sense of presence and closeness. This is one of the main reasons why VR occupies a privileged place in the plans of techn....

Protocol

The protocol was submitted to the Scientific and Ethical Committee of the Nebrija University, in which a group of external experts reviewed and validated the process. To be able to participate in the study, we required a written acceptance informed consent as recommended by the Declaration of Helsinki¹⁷, and it was made clear to the participants that they were not going to be involved in any experimental condition.

1. Design of the research instrument

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Discussion

This study explores the profile of Spanish early adopters of VR, assessing their interest in the use of VR as a learning tool. Therefore, along with other studies, it offers a fresh perspective on the real possibilities of VR and its applications to the classroom⁹.

The users of VR devices live literally everywhere, so there is not a physical place to identify and locate them. For this reason, the only possible way to find them is through VR forums and websites that VR u.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Encuestafacil.com Saas (Software as a Service)	Encuestafacil.com	2019	Software as a Service in the Encuestafacil.com private data server
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)	IBM	24	Software package used in statistical analysis of data
VR Forum in Elotrolado.net online portal	New EOL, S.L.	2019	The elotrolado.net is a Spanish website for communication and information technologies, digital leisure and video games, with more than 460,000 users and ten million of monthly visits. So far, it is the only Spanish website with a specific VR forum with more than 400 threads. Around 76,000 early VR adopters contribute with messages and posts talking about all HMD, and platforms on the market.