How Immersive Virtual Environments Foster Self-Regulated Learning

Abstract

Over the past decade, immersive virtual environments have been increasingly used to facilitate students' learning of complex scientific topics. The non-linearity and open-endedness of these environments create learning opportunities for students but can also impose challenges in terms of extraneous cognitive load and greater requirements for self-regulated learning (SRL). SRL is crucial for academic success in various educational settings. This chapter explores how the immersive virtual assessments (IVAs), an immersive virtual environment designed to assess middle school students' science inquiry skills, fostered SRL. The analyses combining educational data mining techniques with multilevel analysis indicated that students developed self-regulatory behaviors and strategies as they used IVAs. Experience with IVAs prepared students to adopt more efficient note-taking and note-reviewing strategies. Students also learned to exploit more available sources of information by taking and reviewing notes on them in order to either solve inquiry problems or to monitor their solutions.

Note-taking and science inquiry in an open-ended learning environment

“…In this study, we explored an open-ended learning environment that was designed as part of the Virtual Performance Assessment Project (see Clarke-Midura, Code, Zap, & Dede, 2012 ). The environment, referred to as Virtual Performance Assessments within the project, was a 3-D immersive virtual environment that had the look and feel of a video game but was designed to assess middle school students’ science inquiry skills in situ ( Clarke-Midura et al, 2009 , Jiang et al, 2018 , Scalise and Clarke-Midura, in press ). Within the environment, students engage in authentic scientific inquiry activities by navigating an avatar around the open-ended learning environment, making observations, gathering data and saving data to a backpack, interacting with non-player characters (NPCs), reading kiosk informational pages for research, taking notes, and conducting virtual laboratory experiments.…”

“…Accumulated evidence shows that OELEs provide an authentic learning context and are effective in enhancing science inquiry skills, boosting self-regulated learning, and preparing students for future learning ( Jiang et al, 2018 , Jiang et al, 2015 , Land, 2000 ). Popular OELEs that have been found to assist science learning include virtual environments (e.g., Clarke-Midura and Dede, 2010 , Scalise and Clarke-Midura, in press ), science microworlds (e.g., Gobert, Sao Pedro, Baker, Toto, & Montalvo, 2012 ), teachable agents (e.g., Leelawong & Biswas, 2008 ), games (e.g., Shute, Ventura, & Kim, 2013 ), and hypermedia (e.g., Azevedo, 2005 ).…”

“…Popular OELEs that have been found to assist science learning include virtual environments (e.g., Clarke-Midura and Dede, 2010 , Scalise and Clarke-Midura, in press ), science microworlds (e.g., Gobert, Sao Pedro, Baker, Toto, & Montalvo, 2012 ), teachable agents (e.g., Leelawong & Biswas, 2008 ), games (e.g., Shute, Ventura, & Kim, 2013 ), and hypermedia (e.g., Azevedo, 2005 ). Despite the learning opportunities, the non-linearity and open-endedness of OELEs also impose challenges on learners in terms of extraneous cognitive load and greater requirements for self-regulated learning ( Azevedo, 2005 , Moos, 2009 , Moos and Azevedo, 2008 , Jiang et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Third, learners explore open-ended learning environments actively and assume an active control of their learning and exploration. Accordingly, OELEs pose high demands on self-regulatory skills, which in turn imposes a high cognitive load on students ( Moos, 2009; Jiang et al, 2018 ). The processing of a large volume of multimedia information from OELEs also has the potential to tax students’ limited cognitive processing capacity.…”

Ambientes virtuais imersivos e aprendizagem

“…Dentre as habilidades motoras, destacam-se os estudos que investigaram: locomoção e equilíbrio (Gérin-Lajoie et al, 2008;Sinitksi et al, 2012) (Bergey et al, 2015), do uso de estratégias de aprendizado (Jiang et al, 2018) e percepção de carga cognitiva .…”