A virtual reality simulation for children: Build and create from the perspective of a toy figure

Despite current (commercial) efforts to employ VR in educational and pedagogical contexts with children, the amount of topic-specific research leaves a lot to be desired. For example, no guidelines exist concerning the design or the application for this target group. Furthermore, there are no findings about health effects or potential benefits or issues. With this paper, we present an application, a toy brick construction simulation, which had the aim to adress some of these questions. The article describes the concept and first explorative evaluation, which was realized by conducting an expert interview with an experienced toy researcher. The presented findings should serve as hints concerning potential pedagogical benefits, effects and design aspects and be a basis for future studies with children. Furthermore, we hoped that they will incite discussion and promote research about the use of VR with young children.