Evaluating the Effectiveness of VR Classrooms as a Replacement for Traditional Asynchronous Video-based Learning Environments

While extensive research has been done on exploring the breadth of capabilities of VR for education, little work has been done on evaluating virtual twins of existing classrooms for enhancing remote education. Remote education is conducted using video-based conferencing systems that can be run in synchronous or asynchronous mode. We consider the asynchronous mode where students can watch a pre-recorded lecture on their own time. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of virtual reality (VR) as a replacement for traditional asynchronous video (AV) remote learning environments. We opted against dramatic changes to the classroom layout to enable participants to have a recognizable environment when interacting in VR. To test the feasibility of our VR classroom, we recruited participants among undergraduate and graduate students from Clarkson University. Using a 25-minute lecture on the history of Indian mathematics followed by a quiz with 10 multiple choice questions, we assessed the performance of students in VR versus performance of a separate set of students in an AV environment, and acquired a post-survey on students’ experience. Our quiz results indicate that there was no statistically difference in student performance between VR and AV. Analysis of our survey results indicates that when compared to the AV variant students found the VR classroom to be less distracting, perceived the quiz to be easier, and found the lecture content more interesting. We observed that more participants indicated they would be likely to recommend VR as a medium of remote learning to their peers. Our results indicate that VR classrooms that emulate recognizable real-world classrooms can provide students with an engaging learning experience when compared to an AV learning environment.