Physical and social presence in 3D virtual role-play for pre-service teachers

Abstract

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f oNumerous studies have explored the affordances of 3D virtual worlds. Although previous studies indicated that virtual worlds would be helpful for experiential and collaborative learning through enhancing physical and social presence, few studies have investigated what determines physical and social presence and what are their roles in learning and teaching in virtual worlds. The current study investigates the influences of individual differences such as age, gender, and epistemological beliefs on physical and social presence. This study also investigates the influences of physical and social presence on situational interest and perceived achievement in virtual role-play. The role-play activity allowed pre-service teachers (n = 151) to teach their peers in realistic classroom contexts within Second Life and to reflect on their language use as teachers. This study found that pre-service teachers' age and epistemological beliefs significantly influenced their physical and social presence in the virtual world. This finding implies that physical and social presence are influenced not only by the representational fidelity of virtual worlds but also by individual differences. In addition, physical and social presence positively influenced situational interest and perceived achievement. More attention should be paid to the roles of physical and social presence in teaching and learning in virtual worlds.

Effectiveness of collaborative learning with 3D virtual worlds

“…A growing number of studies have interests in collaborative learning and problem solving in VWs (Cho et al , ; Dalgarno & Lee, ). Despite the potential of VWs, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of collaborative learning with VWs in K‐12 schools.…”

“…The virtual learning environment helps students to have the sense of presence and closely interact with people at a distance through 3D avatars. VWs have been used to support collaborative activities such as project‐based learning, argumentation, interdisciplinary communication and role‐play (Cho, Lim & Paik, ; Jarmon, Traphagan, Mayrath & Trivedi, ; Keskitalo, Pyykkö & Ruokamo, ). VWs enable students not only to communicate with each other at a distance but also to jointly carry out authentic tasks such as constructing a bridge in a virtual place (Keskitalo et al , ).…”

Teachers’ Technology Acceptance and Usage Situations and the Evaluation of Web Pedagogic Content Knowledge in Terms of Different Variations and the Determination of the Relationship between These

“…In similar studies of which study groups comprise of prospective teachers, it is stated that their self-efficacy levels in educational internet usage are medium-level (Kalay, Balay, & Adıgüzel, 2014;Topal & Akgün, 2015), their web pedagogic content knowledge level is high and there is a positive difference between their web pedagogic content knowledge and internet usage frequencies (Akgün, 2013 (Uzun, 2013) and their online learning motivations are high-level (Çakır & Horzum, 2015). Moreover, it is stated that augmented reality applications in which digital objects are offered together with real objects, increase the knowledge about the subject, teachers' academic success in 3d visual environments are higher (Cho, Yim, & Paik, 2015), it is difficult to prepare educative animation and to apply it to all subjects (Seçkin-Kapucu, Eren, & Yurtseven-Avcı, 2014). They also reshaped the education environment of technology, education besides affecting the type and nature of the material used in the course of the evaluation process and the results dimension.…”

An Analysis of the 3D Video and Interactive Response Approach Effects on the Science Remedial Teaching for Fourth Grade Underachieving Students

“…3D virtual technology provides the user a real visual experience, and there are many pedagogical and learning research in recent years (Cho, Yim, & Paik, 2015;Chow, 2016;Yilmaz, Baydas, Karakus, & Goktas, 2015). 3D reality can make users more involved in the interaction, and gender will not influence how involved students are toward the interactivity but experience and spatial ability would (Yilmaz et al, 2015).…”