Learners’ love/hate relationship with virtual world learning experiences

First of a four-article series by Irene Boland, PhD.

Ask a learner who has been in a virtual world what they think and you may hear that they love that they get to explore new places and meet new people. Ask another and you might hear that they hate feeling disoriented or even nauseated. These individual anecdotes can be lively, funny and curious—but they are not a basis on which to make decisions about whether your organization will undertake a virtual world learning project. As part of a recent project, I had the opportunity to survey nearly 300 students who had just participated in a constructivist learning experience in Second Life (SL)  –to learn what they loved, hated and would like to see changed. In this article, we’ll explore what a large number of real learners have to say about their experience learning in a virtual world.

The context

These learners were first year college students, enrolled in their first Financial Accounting course as business majors. The use of Second Life was required for the course. The majority of the participants were between 18 and 23 years old. Generally, they were very experienced with computers and internet. Fewer than one percent of learners had Second Life experience before enrolling in this account class. Learners were provided with support and scaffolding to help them adjust to using SL for learning on a regular basis. Sixty six percent of learners had attended a Second Life orientation that was hosted by their professor in-world.  During that orientation he showed them around the class space, and taught them basics of using their avatars to navigate the space, interacting with each other and with the interactive accounting equation model.

Students had the option to participate in my research experiment for extra credit. In this experiment, I wanted to measure changes in participants’ accounting knowledge and changes in anxiety related to the use of SL for learning.  Prior to using SL for the experiment, participants completed a validated survey instrument which provided a baseline of their self-reported levels of anxiety before they had this learning experience in SL.  After the SL learning session and posttest, participants completed the survey again.  The self-reported anxiety after the SL experience showed that participants became less anxious about using SL for learning as a result of the controlled experiment. There were also open-ended questions that enabled learners to report whether they experienced any adverse impacts and how they felt the experience could be improved. Participants were offered the opportunity to provide feedback about the best and worst parts of the experience along with advice for improvements. Their feedback was not limited to the experiment, but to all the experiences they’ve had since starting use of SL for this course.

Adverse events reported by learners

First, it was encouraging that 77% of participants reported no negative experiences in SL. Other platforms, purpose built for training, may have an even lower rate of negative experiences. For learning professionals considering using SL as a learning platform, this means most new users are not likely to have negative issues. The fact that no participants reported experiencing griefing (harassment by other avatars) is a better outcome than in the general world of SL and may be attributable to the professor’s use of a school and class-specific code of SL conduct in addition to the standard SL community rules. This provides useful context when reviewing the negative experiences—fewer than one quarter of learners reported the negative experiences.

Amongst those that did report negative experiences, the most frequently reported were that the SL site or client software moved slowly or froze and crashed their machines, confusion, disorientation,  and loneliness. Confusion was defined as not knowing what you should do once you are in-world. Disorientation was the experience of feeling that you don’t know where you are now and how it relates to the greater world around you in the 3D environment. Issues related to platform performance are not in the control of the user. Other than having a computer with a great graphics card and a high-speed internet connection, there was nothing more the learners could do to resolve that issue. Confusion and disorientation, the learners reported, reduced with time and experience in-world. A very small number of people who use 3D platforms or video games experience a physical issue with a loss of balance or nausea. While this is rare, if you are planning a 3D learning experience, it helps to be aware that it’s possible one of your learners may experience this.

Next article – what learners hate about trying to learn in a virtual world.

Is there a topic you’d like to see in a future Practical Applications of Research? Post it as a comment below – or email your request to editor@elearningfuture.com

LinkedIn: I am very likely to accept invitations to connect on linkedin from professionals and students in our field. On linkedin, visit my profile, click the Add to my network button and add me to your network using “other” and this email: taoirene at yahoo dot com. Here’s my profile on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/drireneboland. Looking forward to meeting you.

Follow us on Twitter: elearningfuture