Name: online explorative study on the learning uses of virtual reality among early adopters
Uploaded: 2019-11-22T13:00:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Online Explorative Study on the Learning Uses of Virtual Reality Among Early Adopters at JoVE.com

The authors are very thankful to the managing team of Elotrolado.net, because without their help this study would have been impossible to conduct. We are also grateful to Encuestafacil.com, which offered us their services free of charge so that we could create the questionnaire and use their servers to gather the data. Finally, we appreciate the feedback and support received from the Scientific and Ethical Committee of the Nebrija University and from Alfonso X el Sabio University.

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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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...

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 technology development of important companies. However, if they want to meet the needs of their potential customers, research on VR is essential to accomplish this goal2.
In Spain, as in most Western societies, the emergence of the first commercial head-mounted displays (HMD) capable of providing acceptable immersion experiences3 increased the interest in VR, leading to the development of software and VR experiences. For instance, some of the most important VR studies are currently Spanish, such as Vertical Robot, awarded multiple times for its products4, or the Tessera Studios and Dual Mirror Games, all of them of international prestige. The educational and scientific spheres have also experienced a whole explosion of research and applied educational experiences from 2015 onwards, as shown in the review by Aznar-D&#237;az, Romero-Rodr&#237;guez, and Rodr&#237;guez-Garc&#237;a5.
Most universities are already aware of the crucial role that VR will play not only in the business and industry sector, but also in many scientific disciplines. Therefore, they are working on several research and innovation lines. For example, the Alfonso X el Sabio University is a pioneer worldwide in the use of VR simulation and augmented reality for training future doctors at the &#34;UAX Virtual Simulation Hospital&#34;, unique in the world. Furthermore, this university applies VR in social, psychological, and educational research6.
Since the popularization of the Internet a few decades ago, different educational methodologies have evolved towards the so-called e-learning that a growing number of universities are adopting7,8. This online learning system is aimed at developing distance learning through technological means, some of which were developed specifically for it, while others were incorporated and adapted for educational purposes. However, e-learning is not exempt from limitations when it comes to social interaction. In this sense, VR considerably reduces some of these shortcomings, making interaction between people easier and much more realistic than any other technology. Also, it takes advantage of all the possibilities that technology offers us, creating an almost infinite world of opportunities3. For instance, VR would allow us to travel through the universe, or along the seabed, to see dinosaurs, to observe the microscopic world, or even to live emotions associated with certain experiences and social events in a simulated way. Therefore, VR could be a vital educational resource, helping teachers in their struggle to engage students with classroom topics 9,10,11.
However, not every aspect of VR is positive, and some downsides must be considered. As mentioned above, it would be useless to develop new and educational applications for VR if the potential trainees and students were not willing to use it or preferred other forms of e-learning, which could be narrower yet more aligned with their true interests and preferences. This is why the desired relationship between VR and learning not only depends on a world of exciting possibilities, but more importantly, on building this relationship upon real social needs and demands. We must bear in mind that VR was recently targeted by companies, and that less than 1% of the total worldwide population has used it. VR is also a technology that is still in its infancy and that cannot be understood if someone has not used it. This last point explains why VR is surrounded by so many prejudices that result either from ignorance or from the social fear of novelty12,13.
To bridge this gap between potential uses of VR and actual demand, it is necessary to find out the expectations of those early adopters that purchase HMDs as soon as they are available in the market. These users are so powerfully attracted to technological innovations that they do not fear purchasing new products that may succeed or fail commercially. Therefore, unlike the rest of the population, the uncertainty that surrounds these new products does not affect them. For this reason, they are the first to discover the real possibilities of VR technology not yet established in the market. Consequently, they can provide information at a real user level, making them a valuable source for this study.
As a sampling method, we designed an online examination questionnaire that was filled out by a representative convenience sample of early adopters. Participants were recruited from a VR forum in a Spanish portal for communication and information technologies, digital leisure, and video games with more than 460,000 users and ten million monthly visits14 (Table of Materials). We created a thread that received 2,000 visits in less than 2 months. The participants who accessed the questionnaire through the hyperlink responded to all the questions raised.
So far, in Spain this is the only website with a specific VR forum and more than 400 threads. Around 76,000 early VR adopters contributed messages and posts talking about all HMDs and platforms on the market15. For this reason, it is the best place to locate a homogeneous convenience sample of early VR adopters. According to Jager, Putnick, and Bornstein16, when a subgroup is homogeneous on one or more sociodemographic factors, we can estimate results with clearer generalizability, providing more accurate accounts of population effects and subpopulation differences. It also eliminates possible biases common in heterogenous convenience sampling.
Our research goals were: (1) to study the profile of early adopters; (2) to examine the current state of VR as an educational technology, determining its degree of implementation; (3) to assess the acceptance of VR as a learning tool among early adopters.

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	<tbody>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:331px;">Encuestafacil.com Saas (Software as a Service)</td>
			<td style="width:223px;">Encuestafacil.com</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:119px;">2019</td>
			<td style="width:457px;">Software as a Service in the Encuestafacil.com private data server</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:331px;">Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)</td>
			<td style="width:223px;">IBM</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:119px;">24</td>
			<td>Software package used in statistical analysis of data</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="147">
			<td height="147" style="height:147px;width:331px;">VR Forum in Elotrolado.net online portal</td>
			<td style="width:223px;">New EOL, S.L.</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:119px;">2019</td>
			<td style="width:457px;">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.</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

online explorative study on the learning uses of virtual reality among early adopters

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&#39;s F, and contingency analysis with chi-square and Sommer&#39;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 (&#60;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.

Table 1 presents the frequency distribution of the categorical variables (nominal, dichotomous, and ordinal variables) along with the mean and standard deviation of the interval scale variable &#34;Age&#34;.
<table border="1" fo:keep-together.within-page="1">
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			<td colspan="4">CATEGORICAL VARIABLES</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Gender</td>
			<td>Levels</td>
			<td>Frequency</td>
			<td>Percentage</td>
...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Online Explorative Study on the Learning Uses of Virtual Reality Among Early Adopters at JoVE.com

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

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.

Virtual reality (VR) has shown great educational potential because it makes it possible to simulate any desired situation or event, thus playing an ...

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