Evaluation of a Virtual Campus Adapted to Web-Based Virtual Reality Spaces: Assessments of Teachers and Students

Abstract

Educational institutions have continuously adapted to new realities in school education, accelerated recently by the COVID-19 pandemic’s transformation of learning modalities. This article analyzes teachers’ and Students’ acceptance of a web-based virtual reality (WebVR) tool called Virtual Campus proposed to overcome the limitations of teaching strategies using video conferencing platforms. To measure the acceptance of the Virtual Campus, we designed an instrument based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that involves variables related to online contexts, the future perception of using the tool, skills development, and appreciation and recommendation. The results indicate that the participants favorably accepted WebVR technology as an alternative teaching methodology in emerging learning scenarios and intend to use it post-pandemic. The best-valued elements were interactions in the socialization spaces, the simulation of presence, and the environmental dynamics. The principal areas of opportunity for improvement were overcoming technical problems and improving the internet connection quality; however, these did not affect the participants’ recommendations. Future studies should incorporate variables related to analyzing learning mediated by WebVR-based strategies and using different methodological designs to compare the findings.

Aprendizaje de los componentes del pensamiento computacional mediado por una aplicación virtual de la Educación 4.0 en el entorno del pensamiento complejo

“…Se utilizaron dos cuestionarios, el primero fue para evaluar al grupo experimental. Para ello se adaptó el instrumento Questionnaire to Evaluate the User Experience in Learning Spaces Mediated by WebVR Technology (Rocha et al, 2022), que consta de 26 ítems organizados en 5 dimensiones: facilidad de uso, utilidad percibida, intención de uso, competencias y apreciación. Los ítems están diseñados para ser respondidos mediante una escala de tipo Likert con cuatro opciones de respuesta.…”

Investigating the Use of Virtual Reality to Improve Speaking Skills: Insights From Students and Teachers

“…Besides, security threats and privacy concerns may arise while using VR (Alismail et al, 2022;Silva et al, 2023). Overall, students who have had positive experiences with VR in Education tend to value its potential to make learning more dynamic and enjoyable, while those who have encountered challenges or limitations may have a more cautious view (Li & Liu, 2022;Rocha Estrada et al, 2022). Students' and teachers' opinions will likely evolve as VR technology evolves.…”

The Metaverse and complex thinking: opportunities, experiences, and future lines of research

“…This could be explained by the documentation of strategies employing disruptive technologies to face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some were based on using the Metaverse (Rocha et al, 2022). Some resulted from the media effect of the announcement of the creation of Meta by Mark Zuckerberg (Fernandez, 2022), which boosted the use of virtual reality environments to position products and services in cyberspace and education (Akgül and Uymaz, 2022;Kraus et al, 2022).…”

“…In higher education, the Virtual Campus of Tecnologico de Monterrey is an environment specially designed for students to attend classes with their personalized avatars (TecReview, 2021). In this Metaverse space, both thematic sessions and an entire higher-level course (CONECTA, 2021) have been conducted, highlighting that in this simulated campus, not only interactive and dynamic learning experiences can be generated, but also skills such as digital transformation, the reasoning for complexity, social intelligence, and communication (Rocha et al, 2022).…”