VR Geoscience Education: Building Spatial Reasoning Skills

We tested the impact of a 15-minute VR training on spatial skills and performance on a geoscience task with a control group. The VR group improved more on the Water Level Task-a measure of understanding of horizontal (B = 0.68, p=0.008). Both groups performed equally on the geology task, except for an orientation rule not well instructed in the VR module (B = -1.33, p=0.0057). In the post-survey, the VR group reported higher ability to link knowledge (X
²
=4.45, p=0.035) and more interest than in past activities (X
²
=8.47, p=0.004). This is encouraging, given the brevity of the VR lesson.