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The
Effect
of
Student Construction
of
Virtual
Environments
on the
Performance
of
High-;...
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The
Effect
of
Student Construction
of
Virtual
Environments
on the
Performance
of
High-
and
Low-Ability
Students
William Winn,
Hunter Hoffman,
Ari
Hollander,
Kimberley
Osberg,
Howard
Rose,
Human Interface Technology Laboratory,
Patti Char,
Department
of
Psychology,
University
of
Washington.
Presented
at the
Annual
Meeting
of the
American
Educational Research Association,
Chicago,
March
1997.
RUNNING HEAD:
Virtual
Environments
Over
the
last
three
years,
our
laboratory
has
been
engaged
in a
project
that
has
brought
demonstrations
of
immersive
virtual reality (VR)
to
around 7000 children
in
Washington
and
Nebraska,
has
built
and
assessed
a
number
of VEs
designed
to
meet
particular learning objectives,
and has
worked with students
and
their teachers
to
build their
own VEs as
part
of
regular curriculum units (Winn,
1995).
This paper describes
the
third
of
these
activities
in
which
we
studied
the
effects
of
having students,
in
grades
4 to 12,
build
their
own
immersive VEs.
For
this paper,
a
virtual environment
is
understood
to be an
immersive,
3-dimensional
environment created
entirely
from
a
database
by a
computer.
The
database
consists
of
objects modeled
by CAD
software
as 3-
dimensional graphic objects. These objects
are
programmed
to
behave
in
certain ways
as
they interact with each
other
and
with
a
"participant"
who is
visiting
the VE. The
participant wears
a
helmet
in
which
the
graphic objects
are
displayed stereoscopically
in two
eyepieces.
The
participant's head
is
tracked electromagnetically
so
that
the
computer
can
recompute
and
redisplay
the
objects from
the
participant's
changing
viewpoint
in
real
time.
The
participant holds
a
wand, whose position
is
also tracked.
The
wand appears
in the
field
of
view
as a
hand
or
tool.
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-97-6/
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By
pointing with
the
wand
and
pressing buttons
on it, the
participant
can
move around inside
the VE,
pick
up
objects
and
interact with them
in a
number
of
ways. Stereophonic sound, which
can
provide realistic
or
arbitrary
auditory cues, completes
the
picture.
Visiting
VEs
helps students learn content under some circumstances (Byrne,
1996;
Dede,
1992,1995;
Rose,
1996; McLellan,
1996).
There
are
three contributing factors.
The
first
is
immersion. Immersion
in a VE
makes
it
possible
for
students
to
experience what they
are
learning
about
in an
entirely
new
way.
VEs can
simulate
objects
and
actions that occur
in the
real world.
But in
particular,
VEs can
represent
in
directly visible
and
manipulable
forms
concepts
and
procedures that
are
intangible
and
invisible
in the
real world. What
is
more, students
can
interact with these objects
and can
actively experience phenomena
in the
virtual world
in
ways that
are
more
natural than those normally employed when interacting with computers (Bricken,
1991)
-- by
moving
and
looking
around,
by
pointing
and
gesturing,
and by
picking objects
up to
manipulate them
or
examine them. These
activities enable students
to
experience phenomena through their
own
eyes, ears
and
hands rather than through
the
eyes
of a
teacher
or
textbook writer, providing what Clancey
(1993)
has
called "first hand" experience
of the
world
which,
we
believe, contributes
a
great deal
to the
sense
of
"presence" students
can
feel
in a VE
(Barfield
&
Hendrix,
1995;
Hoffman,
Hullfish
&
Houston,
1994;
Zeltzer, 1992).
For
example,
in
Dede
and
Loftin's
"Science
Space",
a
student
may
experience first-hand what
it is
like
to be a
ball that reacts
to
forces acting
on, and to
collisions
with
another
ball,
(Dede
at
al.,
1996;
Loftin
et
al.,
1993).
The
student
can
learn
Newtonian
mechanics
by
becoming
and by
observing
a
ball
as it
responds
to
student-induced changes
in
gravity, mass, velocity
and
elasticity. This
is not
possible
in any
other environment.
The
second contributing factor
to
students learning
in VEs is the
interaction that
VEs
foster. Indeed,
a
study
by
Byrne
(1996)
suggested that interaction
is a
more important facilitator
of
learning than immersion
for
some kinds
of
task. Educational technologists have,
of
course, always understood that
a
student
must
interact with
an
environment
for
learning
to
occur (Anderson,
Corbett,
Koedinger
&
Pelletier,
1996;
Psotka,
1995).
However,
the
potential naturalness
of
interactions with objects
in a VE
makes interaction much easier
and
therefore
more
useful
than
in
other types
of
environment.
Finally,
most students find
VEs
entirely engaging (Bricken
&
Byrne,
1993;
Taylor,
1997;
Winn,
1995).
Part
of the
reason
for
this
is
doubtless
the
novelty
of VR and its
association
in
children's minds with computer
and
video
games. Another reason
is the
uniqueness
of the
experience
and the
empowerment
it
brings
to
young students
who
can control the computer to do their bidding in complex and sophisticated ways. We also believe, and set out
to
determine
in
this study, that
it
also enables some students
to
understand concepts
and
principles that have
hitherto been opaque
and
baffling which
is
intrinsically motivating.
Having students construct their
own VEs
also enables them
to
learn content (Osberg,
1997).
Building
a VE
requires students
to
construct knowledge
of the
domain
of
knowledge
the VE
embodies.
In our
work, students
take
responsibility
for
mastering
content,
deciding
how
that
content
is to be
represented
in the VE and how it is to
behave.
The VE is
therefore
a
projection
of
students' understanding,
or
mental models, into
an
entire world
of
their
own
creation.
We
believe that arriving
at the
understanding necessary
to
build
a VE
enjoys
all the
advantages
of
allowing students
to
construct knowledge
for
themselves, under guidance, rather than have
it fed to
them (See Dede,
1995;
Winn, 1993; Chapters
in
Duffy, Lowyck
&
Jonassen,
1993).
We
also believe that
constructing
a VE
engages those cognitive
and
perceptual skills that
are
brought
to
bear when
a
student makes
any
physical construction
(Harel
&
Papert,
1991).
Turning
a
mental model into
an
artifact
is, of
course, design
(Simon,
1981).
We
have
had our
students
work with
us as
apprentice
instructional
designers.
Having them make
an
environment
to
teach other children
is a
powerful learning tool.
The
responsibility they take
on in so
doing
is
very
motivating.
From
this,
we
conclude that
VEs
offer
a
very unique
way for
students
to
learn. They
can
gain unique perspectives
and
experience
in a
virtual place through
the
first
hand experience
VEs
allow. When they build
a VE,
they
construct their
own
mental models
of
content
and
then project these
for all to see and
share onto
an
entire world
that
they
design
and
make.
The
technology
is
exciting
to use and the
projects
are
high
motivating.
The
main purpose
of
this study
was to
test
the
hypothesis that
the
unique experiences
of
building
and
visiting
VEs
would
be
more
useful
to
some students
than
others.
Learning
in
"traditional"
classrooms often
requires
students
master
abstract
and
esoteric symbol systems before they
can
understand content.
Our
expectation
was
that
by
allowing students,
first,
to
make decisions about
how
their
"world"
was to
appear
and
behave, then
by
putting into
their hands
the
tools
to
actually build
it and
then having them visit their
VE and
perform
tasks
in it
would
be
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-97-6/
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particularly helpful
for
students
who do not do
well with
a
more traditional, symbol-oriented pedagogy.
We
therefore
examined
the
extent
to
which students' general
ability,
and
secondary school students' spatial reasoning
ability
and
spatial
orientation ability predicted performance after learning
by
building
and
visiting
VEs and
after
learning
the
same content
in
more traditional ways. Also, because earlier observations
had
suggested that gender
might also interact with spatial ability
to
predict performance,
we
looked
for
gender differences
in our
performance
data.
Method.
Subjects.
Three hundred
and
sixty-five students from grades
4 to 12
took part
in the
world-building project. However, only
in
a few of the
secondary schools, where more than
one
class
at the
same grade level
was
studying
the
same
material,
was it
possible
to
make comparisons between
the
students building
VEs and
students learning
in a
more
traditional way.
In
some
of
these classes, students
who did not
build
a
world still
got to
visit one. Also, attrition
quite high
in
some schools because
the
final data collection took place close
to the end of the
school year
and
some
students graduated.
We
worked with intact classes.
Procedure.
At
the
beginning
of the
year, teachers taking part
in a
larger project
to
bring
VR to
their classrooms were invited
to
submit short proposals
for
having their students build curriculum-related VEs. Fourteen proposals were received
and
accepted. Each school proposed
to
build
a
different world, though most were related
to
science curricula.
The
number
of
students participating
in the
construction
of
each
VE, and the
roles each played
in the
construction
process, varied from school
to
school.
We
took
a
four-step approach
to
constructing VEs: Planning, modeling, programming
and
experiencing.
The
entire process took from
six to ten
weeks with numerous visits
by
project
staff
to the
students
and
their teachers,
with,
again,
considerable variability
form
school
to
school. During
the
planning phase, students worked
in
groups
to
make decisions about
how the VE
should look
and
behave. They were
given
the
task
of
constructing
a VE in
which
other students could learn
the
content they were studying. This required them
to
find ways
to
show objects
and to
design metaphors
for
invisible objects
and
procedures. Modeling required
the
students both
to
learn
the 3D
CAD
software
we
used
for the
project, running
on
Macintoshes
in
their classrooms,
to
design their objects
on
paper
and
then
to
draw them
in
three dimensions
on the
computer. Programming
was
conducted
by
laboratory
staff.
This involved assembling
the
objects into
the VE,
following
the
students' instructions,
and
imbuing
the VE
with
the
intended behaviors.
For the
experiencing phase, students visited
the VEs
they
had
created. They were
given specific tasks
to
perform.
After
performing these tasks, which took
from
ten to
fifteen minutes, students
completed knowledge posttests
and the
general
and
spatial ability tests,
and
completed
a
questionnaire.
Instruments.
Students took teacher-constructed posttests over
the
content they
had
been studying. Because each group
of
students
built
a
different
VE, and
each teacher therefore wrote
a
different posttest,
the
scores were first
standardized
to
allow comparisons across
VEs and the
pooling
of
data across schools. Students
also
took
a
test
of
general
ability,
Raven's "Progressive Matrices" (Raven,
1958).
This
is a
test that
is not
affected
by
students'
mastery
of
language,
and
which
has
been normed
for
students
we
were working with. Scores were converted
to
age-corrected percentiles
for
analysis. Middle
and
High School students took
an
additional four spatial ability tests
from
the
Ekstrom
(1976)
battery, card rotations, cube comparisons, paper folding
and
surface development.
The
sum
of the
first
two of
these gave
a
measure
of
spatial
reasoning
ability
and the
second
two
assessed
spatial
visualization.
Students also completed
a
questionnaire. This consisted
of 24
five-point scales that solicited student
ratings
in a
number
of
areas
including
enjoyment,
the
sense
of
"presence"
in the VE
(the extent
to
which
students
felt
they were really
in the VE and not in the
classroom),
and
potential impediments
to
learning such
as
difficulty
seeing
and
moving around
in the VE and
tendency
to
nausea. Students
who did not
build worlds
and who
were
in
a
"traditional" class answered
an
eight-item subset
of
these questions that were concerned with
the VR
experience
not
with
building
a
world.
Results.
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-97-6/
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High-;...
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Students were blocked
on
ability
on the
basis
of
their Raven's scores with students scoring
in the
middle third
of
the
range
of
scores excluded from
the
analysis (final N=45).
Posttest
scores were submitted
to a
two-way ANOVA
involving "World-building"
and
"Traditional" groups crossed with high
and low
ability.
There
was no
main
effect
for
group. However,
the
interaction
of
group with ability
was
significant,
F(1,44)=2.91,
p<.10.
Low-ability students
who
did
world-building
(M=68.62%,
SD=20.75) significantly outperformed those studying
in the
traditional
way
(M=42.55%,
SD=26.28),
F(1,44)=8.67,
p<.01.
For
high-ability students, there
was no
difference
in
performance
(MVR=60.16%,
SD=18.75,
MTraditional=60.89%,
SD=19.36).
Students were also blocked
on
their spatial ability
and
spatial visualization scores.
No
significant main
effects
or
interactions were found
for
either measure with content posttest performance
as the
dependent variable.
Contingency tables were built from
the
questionnaire rating scales
for
pairs
of
questions whose relationships were
of
interest.
The (2
test showed that most
of
these associations were significant. Therefore,
in
order
to
arrive
at a
more
parsimonious description
of the
data,
two
principle components factor analyses
of the
questionnaire were
performed
with varimax rotation.
The
first
included
all
items
on the
questionnaire, that
is
those items answered
by
students
who
built
worlds. This produced eight factors with Eigenvalues
>
1.0,
accounting
for
69.2%
of the
variance.
The
second factor analysis included only those questionnaire items answered
by all
students, those
built worlds
and
those
in the
"traditional" group
who
visited
a VE.
This produced three factors with Eigenvalues
>
1.0,
accounting
for
62.0%
of the
variance.
Students' factor scores
were
obtained
for
both factor analyses. Factor scores from
the
first
factor analysis were
then
compared across students blocked,
as
before,
on
general ability (Raven scores), spatial reasoning (Ekstrom
spatial scores)
and
spatial visualization (Ekstrom visualization scores). Four
of the
eight factors produced
significant findings. Factor
II,
with
an
Eigenvalue
of
2.25 accounting
for
9.4%
of the
variance,
had
loadings
on
items
assessing enjoyment
and the
sense
of
presence. Factor
IV,
with
an
Eigenvalue
of
1.61
accounting
for
6.7%
of
the
variance,
had
loadings
on
items reporting
the
extent
to
which students made drawings
and
used
3D
models
before
drawing objects
on the
computer. Factor
V,
with
an
Eigenvalue
of
1.40
accounting
for
5.8%
of the
had
loadings
on
items assessing students' degree
of
nausea
and
general malaise. Factor VII, with
an
Eigenvalue
of
1.10
accounting
for
4.6%
of the
variance,
had
loadings
on
items where students assessed
the
extent
to
which
they collaborated with other students. T-tests using factor scores
for
factor
II
showed that high general ability
students reported making paper drawings
and 3D
models
of
objects before modeling them
on the
computer more
than
low
ability
students,
t(41)
=1.82,
p<.10.
Factor scores
for
factor
IV
showed high spatial reasoning students
enjoyed visiting their world
and
experienced higher levels
of
presence more than
low
spatial students, t(22)=2.47,
p<.05. Factor scores
for
factor
V
showed that high spatial reasoning students were also likely
to
feel less nausea
and
less dizziness than
low
spatial students,
t(22)=1.74,
p<.10.
Factor scores
for
factor
VII
showed that students
with higher
spatial
visualization scores collaborated more with other students with
low
spatial visualization scores,
t(22)=1.72,
p<.10.
Factor scores
from
the
second factor analysis were submitted
to
ANOVA with group (world building versus
traditional
treatments)
as the
independent variable
and
ability,
spatial reasoning
and
spatial
visualization
as
predictors.
Two of the
three factors produced significant results. Factor
I,
with
an
Eigenvalue
of
2.51 accounting
for
31.3%
of the
variance,
had
loadings
on
items
to do
with enjoyment
and
presence. Factor
II,
with
an
Eigenvalue
of
1.40
accounting
for
17.5%
of the
variance,
had
loadings
on
items that assessed students' ability
to
find
and
identify objects,
to
understand
the
task they were performing,
and to
navigate
in the
world. Analysis
of
factor
scores
for
factor
I
showed that high spatial reasoning students experienced more enjoyment
and
presence than
low
spatial students,
F(1,51)=5.66,
p<.05.
For
factor
II,
high general ability students found
it
easier
to
find objects,
perform
the
task
and
navigate than
low
ability students,
F(1,92)=3.48,
p<.10.
Interestingly,
no
significant findings
were
obtained
for
group.
Because presence
is
fundamental
to
enjoyment
and to
performance
in a
virtual world, because
of the
role spatial
reasoning plays
in
presence ratings,
and
because
it
appeared from other associations obtained from
the
rating
scales that gender also affected presence ratings, further analysis
was
performed
on a
composite "presence"
score
obtained
by
adding
the
ratings
on the two
presence items
on the
questionnaire giving
a
maximum score
of
10.
Two-way ANOVA involving
two
levels
of
gender
and two
levels
of
spatial
reasoning ability
was
performed
on
presence
scores.
For
gender,
F(1,53)=6.53,
p<.05.
For
spatial
ability,
F(1,53)=5.58,
p<.05.
For the
interaction
of
gender with spatial
ability,
F(1,53)=5.51,
p<.05. Spatial reasoning ability
did not
affect presence ratings
for
boys,
(MLow
Spatial=7.47,
sd=1.26,
MHigh
Spatial=7.47,
sd=1.93).
However,
low
spatial
girls
reported lower presence
than high spatial girls, (MLow
Spatial=5.14,
sd=1.96,
MHigh Spatial=7.38,
sd=1.41,
t(20)=2.82,
p<.01).
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-97-6/
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The
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Discussion.
As
expected,
the
world-building
activity
improved
the
posttest
performance
of low
ability
students
who
built
worlds
when
compared
to
those learning
in a
traditional manner. This suggests that
the
aggregate
of
innovative learning
activities afforded
by
world
building
helped students understand
the
material
who do not
have high general
ability
as
measured using a traditional test. The lack of
difference
between high ability students in both groups simply
reconfirms
that brighter students
can
learn
from
a
variety
of
approaches
and
therefore,
for
them,
the
innovative
nature
of the
world-building strategy
had no
effect.
It
remains
to
determine
in a
more
controlled study which
aspects
of
world
building
and of
experiencing
a VE
made
the
greatest contribution
to
this gain
-
immersion,
interaction, motivation,
or the
ability
to
learn concepts
and
principles directly without
the
need
to
master
an
abstruse
and
abstract symbol system first.
The
lack
of
prediction
of
performance
by
spatial
reasoning
and
spatial
visualization
ability
was
somewhat
surprising.
After
all,
a VE is a
place where
all
learning occurs
in
3-dimensional
space.
We
suspect, with hindsight,
that technical difficulties
in
navigating
and
operating
in the VEs
might have canceled
out any
advantages accruing
from
high spatial ability.
The VE was
just
not
conducive
to
using these
abilities.
Moreover,
the
finding that
spatial
ability predicts presence
and
enjoyment supports this interpretation since
we
know that presence
and
enjoyment
predict performance
and
that navigating
and
operating difficulties reduce presence
and
enjoyment (Winn, 1995).
This also suggests that high spatial ability,
by
heightening presence
and
enjoyment, might influence performance
indirectly. However, this explanation awaits empirical verification. Also, students collaborated extensively
designing
and
building their
VE.
This division
of
labor might have helped
low
spatial students compensate
for
their
low
spatial
ability.
The
first factor analysis showed that high general
ability
students used
the
recommended strategies
of
drawing
and
using three-dimensional models
to
help them visualize objects before modeling them
on the
computer.
It
seems that
the
more able students
use
appropriate strategies
for
performing particular tasks. Also, students with
high
spatial
reasoning ability reported less physical malaise
in the VE.
This suggests that students
who are
good
at
manipulating objects
are
less likely
to
suffer
the
side
effects
that motion through space sometimes induces.
The
finding
that
students
with
high
spatial
visualization
ability
reported
collaborating
with other
students
more often
than students
low on
this ability
has no
obvious interpretation. Perhaps other students turned
to
them
for
help
when
they needed
to
visualize objects
in the VE
from different points
of
view.
The
factor scores
from
the
second factor analysis suggest,
in
addition
to the
finding about enjoyment
and
presence,
that
more able students found
it
easier
to
perform tasks
in the VE,
including
the
ability
to
find objects
and
navigate
in it,
than less able students.
One
interpretation
of
this finding, that
is
corroborated
by the
result
reported above,
is
that working
in a VE
requires
the
commitment
of
cognitive resources more available
to
high
ability
students. This would
be the
case
if the
interface
is not
sufficiently intuitive, requiring purposeful attention
in
order
for the
student
to use it.
Anecdotally,
we can
report that,
in a
grade
11
Chemistry study
in
which students
spent close
to an
hour
working
in a VE
while
producing
think-aloud
data,
the
first fifteen minutes
in
almost
every
case were dominated
by
comments about
the
interface,
and
only later
did
subjects' thoughts turn
to
Chemistry.
(Data from this project have
not yet
been completely analyzed.)
Girls
with
low
spatial reasoning ability reported experiencing less presence than girls with high
spatial
reasoning
ability.
This
difference
was not
found
for
boys,
who
reported higher
levels
of
presence
than
girls.
It is
possible
that
boys have different ways
from
girls
of
becoming engaged
in a VE.
Maybe they have more exposure
to
computer
games
and
have developed better skills
for
manipulating
the
interface than
girls.
Maybe they
are
more easily
fooled into believing
a VE is
real than girls. This finding requires further study.
We
consider
this
study
to be
exploratory.
A
good
theoretical
framework
has not yet
been
constructed
from which
to
construct good hypotheses about
the
questions that arose
a
priori
and ex
post facto
in
this study. Moreover,
the
setting
of the
study
-
intact classrooms
in
different schools working
on
different topics
- was not
conducive
to
producing anything
but
messy data. Nonetheless, what analysis these data permitted have confirmed
the
general
findings that creating
and
visiting
VEs
helps less able students understand material. This
may be
because
working with
VEs
allows
these
students
to use
learning
strategies
that
are not
called
upon
in
traditional
classrooms where emphasis
is on
learning more symbolically. Presence
is
clearly
a key to
learning
in VEs and is
related
to
spatial
reasoning
ability.
And
gender
is a
factor, whose precise role
we
still need
to
determine,
but
which should
not be
ignored.
As the
technology
for
building
and
learning
in VEs
advances both
the
quality
of the
VE
and the
ease
of
working
in it,
more carefully controlled studies will
be
possible
and we
will
be in a
position
to
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-97-6/
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conduct studies
of
precisely which features
of VEs
facilitate
the
learning
of
what kinds
of
content
for
which
students.
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Footnote.
1.
This project
was
funded
with
a
grant
from
the US
WEST Foundation
to the
Human Interface Technology
Laboratory
at the
University
of
Washington.
We
gratefully acknowledge
the
support
of US
WEST while taking full
responsibility ourselves
for all
opinions
and any
errors that occur
in
this paper.
Human
Interface
Technology
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-97-6/
1/23/03