An Evaluative Study on VISOLE—Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment

Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment (VISOLE) is a constructivist pedagogical approach to game-based learning. It encompasses the creation of a near real-life online interactive world modeled upon a set of multidisciplinary domains, in which each student plays a role in this “virtual world” and shapes its development. With sophisticated multiplayer simulation context and teacher facilitation, VISOLE aims at providing opportunities for students to acquire subject-specific knowledge in a multidisciplinary manner as well as sharpen their generic skills for problem solving. With a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry, an evaluative study on VISOLE was conducted in Hong Kong, involving the deployment of VISOLE in 16 schools (with 254 students and 28 teachers). Notwithstanding, the positive quantitative findings (the students' advancement in the knowledge and problem-solving generic skills concerned) of the study, the qualitative data revealed that some phenomena which emerged during the VISOLE process impeded the students' learning process. On the other hand, some of the teachers, who also observed the same impeding phenomena, initiated or suggested some new interventions to mitigate these phenomena. The findings threw light on the issue of how to enhance the current design of VISOLE.