From diderot@hitl.washington.edu Sat Oct 1 15:58:10 1994 Return-Path: Received: from mx1.u.washington.edu by stein2.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.4/UW-NDC Revision: 2.30 ) id AA27909; Sat, 1 Oct 94 15:58:10 -0700 Received: from hitl-new.hitl.washington.edu by mx1.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.9/UW-NDC Revision: 2.30 ) id AA08687; Sat, 1 Oct 94 15:58:09 -0700 Received: by hitl.hitl.washington.edu; id AA10194; Sat, 1 Oct 1994 15:56:04 -0700 Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 15:56:04 -0700 Message-Id: <9410012256.AA10194@hitl.hitl.washington.edu> X-Sender: diderot@hitl.washington.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: scivw@hitl.washington.edu From: Don Theophilus (by way of diderot@hitl.washington.edu (Toni Emerson)) Subject: VR Study Summary (fwd) X-Status: Status: OR see below Donald R Theophilus III Human Interface Technology Laboratory Manager of Special Projects University of Washington, FJ-15 Voice (206) 685-3215 Seattle, WA 98195 Fax (206) 543-5380 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 13 Sep 94 22:41:05 EDT From: Gregory Taylor <72122.267@compuserve.com> To: Donald Theophilus Subject: VR Study Summary Hello, I have completed my study at The Ohio State University entitled "The Potential Role of Virtual Reality in Environmental Education." Below you will find a summary of that study. The study can be located in The Ohio State University library system. If you would like to recieve the complete study please let me know and we can arrange to have it mailed to you on a 3.5 inch diskette. (The study was written with WordPerfect 6.0) I apologize to anyone who may have received this summay twice. I am emailing this study to literally hundreds of individuals and some of you may be on both email lists. If you have any questions about the study or the findings please contact me via email or postal mail. I can be reached at: Gregory L. Taylor 560 Stinchcomb Drive Apt. #2 Columbus, Ohio 43202 (614) 262-3605 E-Mail: 72122.267@compuserve.com Thanks Gregory L. Taylor --------------------- Thesis Title: "The Potential Role of Virtual Reality in Environmental Education" Author: Gregory L. Taylor Summary The purpose of this study was to assess the potential role of virtual reality (VR) in environmental education (EE). The survey instrument was designed around the study's three research questions: 1) What is the current level of acceptance of VR as a teaching tool in environmental education by environmental educators? 2) What are perceived as the most beneficial roles and applications of VR to the field of environmental education? 3) What areas concerning the application of VR to environmental education should be studied in order for VR to become an effective tool in environmental education? The principal findings for each of the three research questions are summarized below. The conclusion section provides an interpretation of the results by the researcher. The study surveyed two sample populations: 400 environmental educators belonging to the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) and 40 virtual reality developers located over the internet, a computer network. The 400 environmental educators were mailed a survey and a fact sheet on virtual reality which defined terms and described VR applications in education and other fields. The 40 VR developers were electronically transmitted their surveys. The responses were requested within two weeks of receiving the survey. The first research question, what is the current level of acceptance of VR as a teaching tool in environmental education by environmental educators, was investigated by question number 16 of the NAAEE survey. Of the 400 surveys mailed, 192 were returned. Of the 192 responses, 108 (56%) indicated "Yes" they would use VR to teach an environmental lesson, 67 (35%) indicated "No or maybe" to using VR as a teaching tool in environmental education and 17 (9%) did not respond to the question. A chi-square test found these frequencies to be significantly different at the 0.01 level. The second research question, what are perceived as the most beneficial roles and applications of VR to the field of EE, was investigated through question number 9 of the NAAEE and the VR developers survey. Question 9 presented seven different possible applications of VR in EE and asked participants to rank their benefits. The two sample populations chose the same applications as the most beneficial and least beneficial to EE. The VR applications rated as the most beneficial to EE enabled students to have experiences unobtainable in the physical world, such as "visiting" remote environments, or exploring things with alterations in space and time. Applications that attempted to simulate actual experiences or to use anthropomorphism or personification were rated as the least beneficial to EE. The third research question, what areas concerning the application of VR to environmental education should be studied in order for VR to become an effective tool in environmental education, was investigated through question number 11 of the NAAEE and VR developers survey. Question 11 asked participants to rank the importance of research areas relevant to the use of VR in education. Both sample populations agreed on the most important and least important research areas. The most important research involved studying what constitutes an effective virtual reality learning environment. Research of VR environments that would be used as a substitute for actual experiences, and those that proposed studying VR applications with anthropomorphism and personification, were rated as the least important. Conclusions In discussing the principal findings above, results from the survey of the virtual reality developers must be presented. The VR developers were asked to rate the impact that VR would have on education and when VR would be available to the educational field. The average responses were that VR would have an impact of 5.5 on elementary education (on a scale of 1 - 7) in 10 years; and that VR would have an impact of 6.0 on higher education in 7 years. These results along with the results from the NAAEE survey lead to the following conclusions: -Virtual reality was found to be a potentially beneficial tool in environmental education. -Virtual reality applications that would allow students to "visit" natural environments, unavailable to them by all other means, were found to be beneficial by the sample populations. -Virtual reality applications that use anthropomorphism were rated as not beneficial to environmental education by the sample populations. -Virtual reality environments that attempt to simulate the physical world, and do not contain experiences beyond what is possible in the physical world, were rated as not beneficial. -Virtual reality could have a significant impact on the field of education in as little as 10 years. -For virtual reality to be successfully integrated into the field of education, educators need to become involved now with the development of VR software. -For VR to be implemented in education, educators should re-evaluate traditional learning methods in light of the new technology. Concerns were expressed by the NAAEE sample population with the use of anthropomorphism and personification in virtual reality learning environments. The researcher believes that this finding requires further research. Though its appropriateness may be argued, anthropomorphism has been used in teaching for many years; as VR learning environments are developed, it should be assumed that they will eventually incorporate some form of it. If educators do not become involved in studying the appropriate uses of these concepts, they may be improperly used in virtual reality. A final point worthy of discussion is the urgency in which educators must become involved in the development of VR software. The survey of virtual reality developers found that the technology will be available to the educational field in as little as ten years. Therefore, it is crucial for the educational community to become involved now in the development of VR software. This researcher believes that it is the responsibility of educators to constantly evaluate new teaching methods and tools in order to provide students with the best possible learning experience. To that end, it is suggested that a task force consisting of leaders from the VR field and the educational field be established to help ensure education's place in the development of VR software. The study suggests that this task force be established under the auspices of the North American Association for Environmental Education and similar professional organizations in the educational community.