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Teaching Presence in a 3D Virtual Reality Learning Environment from Students’ Perspectives

Minh Pham

Dr. Xinhao Xu

Hao He

Jhon Alexander Bueno Vesga

University of Missouri, Columbia

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Background

Community of Inquiry (CoI) (Garrison et al. , 1999)
One of the essential elements that lead to success in online learning (Anderson, 2001)

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Background

Instructor’s interaction, communication style, and frequency of the instructor’s input into the class discussions and communication (Kassinger, 2004; Palloff & Pratt, 2003)
the design, facilitation, and direction of student cognitive and social presence to support student meaningful and deep learning (Anderson et al., 2001)
all kinds of instructor activities, including instruction and facilitation of communication to support student learning

“posting regularly to the discussion board, responding in a timely manner to email and assignments, and generally modelling good online communication and interactions”

- In the teaching presence framework proposed by Anderson et al. (2001), teaching presence in online learning is composed of three critical roles for the instructor.

Design and organize learning experiences.

Create, implement, and monitor activities that encourage communication and interaction between the students, teachers, and content resources.

Facilitate cognitive and social processes of learning for students through direct instruction.
we define teacher presence as all kinds of instructor activities, including instructions and facilitation of communication to support student learning. More specifically, teacher presence supports student learning to ensure that students feel that the teacher is available at any time, gives feedback, guides them, helps them, facilitates discourse, and is with them, so to speak, throughout the entire learning process. Teaching presence makes students feel the distance disappear.

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Literature Review

positively correlated with both students’ sense of belonging to a learning community and higher retention rates (Boston et al., 2006; Rapanta et al., 2020; Shea et al., 2005; Sime & Themelis, 2020; Zhang et al., 2016).
tied to course satisfaction (Caskurlu et al., 2020; Ice et al., 2007)
Positive predictor on learning performance (Lim & Rihardson, 2020; Sidiropoulou & Mavroidis, 2019)
Absence of teaching presence, low engagement (Angeli et al., 2003; Pawan et al., 2003; Pham et al., 2021)
There is no debate about the efficacy of online learning; with the emergence of new digital technologies such as VR/AR/MR, research is still needed on how to design a positive learning experience, especially from students’ perspectives

Several important variables such as a sense of belonging to a learning community, learning satisfaction, and engagement are believed to contribute to student learning and have been found to be linked to teaching presence (e.g., Boston et al., 2006; Ice et al., 2007; Pham et al., 2021; Shea et al., 2005).
When students perceive a lack of teaching presence, their engagement in discussions is primarily characterized by one-way monologues or exchanges of poorly reasoned personal experiences
While there is no debate about the efficacy of online learning in scientific communities, such as AECT, research is still needed on how to design a positive learning experience, especially with the emergence of new digital technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, Mixed Reality Technologies (VR/AR/XR), or wearable technologies.

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Research Question

What are students’ perceptions of teaching presence in the desktop VR-based learning environment?

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Research Design

Qualitative exploratory research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2006)
Content analysis

(1) becoming familiar with the data;
(2) becoming familiar with the framework;
(3) inductive open coding
(4) identification of themes
(5) review of themes
(6) refining and defining themes
(7) report writing

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Research Design

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Participants

Participants: Students taking an online course on the introduction of digital media
Course enrollment: 30 – 40 students
Length: 3 one-week long learning modules
Sample size: 86 (3 semesters)

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Data Collection

Qualtrics online surveys conducted right after the 3 learning modules
Reflections: “What are the most three helpful aspects regarding the content of digital 3D VRLE in Module 6,7 & 8?”

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Teaching Materials

Non-immersive VR/ desktop VR
Interactive 3D computer generated multimedia environment presented on a conventional personal computer (Chen et al., 2004; Strangman & Hall, 2003)
explored using keyboard, mouse, wand, joystick or touch screen (Chen et al., 2004; Strangman & Hall, 2003).

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Teaching Materials

SISLT
Developed by TELL Research Lab led by Dr. Xinhao Xu
OpenSimulator: Developer site
Firestorm Viewer: Viewer site

The study will be conducted using OpenSimulator, an open source Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) and a virtual world created to simulate the real buildings and spaces of the University of Missouri, including those related to the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies (SISLT). Technical procedures on software utilization will be presented as video tutorials.

�The study will be conducted using OpenSimulator, an open source Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) and a virtual world created to simulate the real buildings and spaces of the University of Missouri, including those related to the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies (SISLT). Technical procedures on software utilization will be presented as video tutorials.�

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Teaching Materials

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Teaching Materials

- OpenSimulator is an open source multi-platform, multi-user 3D application server. It can be used to create a virtual environment (or world) which can be accessed through a variety of clients, on multiple protocols, see Connecting. Optional Hypergrid allow users to visit other OpenSimulator installations across the web from their 'home' installation or grid. In this way, it is the basis of a nascent distributed Metaverse.

OpenSimulator allows virtual world developers to customize their worlds using the technologies they feel work best - we've designed the framework to be easily extensible.

- The SISLT 3D space was developed by TELL – a research group of a mid-West university in the US using OpenSimulator. Students were also provided the opportunity to explore, create, and view things in a 3D VRLE with the use of OpenSimulator and viewers like Firestorm.

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Teaching Materials

Activities included:

OpenSimulator viewer (Firestorm) installation and connection to server.
Avatar personalization.
Navigation and avatar movement.
Communication and interaction with other avatars.
Prims building, edition, and interaction.
Scripts for media presentations.
Present media creations to peer in a virtual gallery

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Teaching Materials

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Materials

Objectives:

To introduce students to the use an open source virtual reality environment (VRE) as a teaching-learning strategy.
To encourage students to use VREs as a tools to develop and deliver educational experiences.�

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Findings

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Findings (1): Presentation of critical content��

Students valued the selection of content presented in the modules which helped them not only to have an overview of VR but also to see the uses and possibilities with VR and VRLE to support learning and how they can become a producer/creator rather than a consumer in those environments.

“Watching the video examples of other 3D VRLEs, has opened my eyes to the vast possibly applications of how this can be used for supporting learning.” (P11)

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Findings (2): The use of walkthrough video tutorials�

Students valued video tutorials which made them accomplish tasks which would be very challenging otherwise.

“The videos that showed how to adjust the avatar, make objects, and make a media board were very useful for creating my own avatar and media board.” (P12)

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Findings (3): Instructor’s availability and accessability��

Students found it helpful having ongoing support from the instructor within the VRLE and in the course, timely feedback and response from the instructor in discussion forum or email exchange, and the instructor’s being approachable and willing to help.

“The TAs and professor were helpful during my live session.” (P9)

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Findings (4): Activities for collaborative learning�

Students valued peer feedback to see their work through the eyes of others and social interactions with others within the VRLE.

“Virtual group meetings demonstrated how VR interactions work most.” (P8)

“Having peers review y work has allowed me to see my work through the eyes of others. This has in turn helped me to be more attentive to my work and what I am developing.” (P17)

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Findings (5): Alignment of learning activities with assessment�

Students reported the completion of all required learning activities in the modules was helpful to complete the assignment.

“Creating our own small project in OpenSimulator after doing the Zoom activity first was helpful because we could look at our projects from a learner's perspective and we had already had experience with the VR environment before building our own media board. “ (P9)

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Conclusion

Limitations: one data source
The five aspects of the learning modules which were perceived the most useful for them are aligned with 3 categories of teaching presence proposed by Garrison et al. (2001) and design recommendations for the effective learning in online learning environments in prior studies (e.g., Jahnke, 2015; Garrison, 2001)
These five aspects also indicate when VRLE is introduced in online learning, the focus of teaching presence on these aspects may be necessary to bring out positive learning experiences for students.