VR in teaching
Multi-User VR in teaching
Case Studies Index
Multi-User Virtual Reality Technology as a Laboratory for Learning
about Social Research: Issues and Prospects
9. Benefits of using Multi-User VR in Teaching
The benefits of using multi-user VR in teaching social research are
- Students are able to get experience in interviewing subjects in an
- They are able to gain access to information that they would find difficult
to gain access to in real-world settings.
- With participant observation of approximately ten hours, it is relatively
easy to gain insight into the social rules and the differences between groups
and worlds. This is because the virtual world is in many ways less complex and
more 'accessible' than the real world.
- Some of the problems that are encountered in virtual worlds, such as the
difficulty of gauging the veracity of answers, or the difference between
informal conversation and structured interviews, are useful for 'sensitizing'
research methods students to some of the difficulties in research and allow
these to be learnt with a minimum of effort.
Areas where multi-user VR
will not be useful is in research in which the researcher needs to get a 'feel'
for the subject and his or her context, as well as in research where the
veracity of results - or the difficulties in a real fieldwork setting - is
important. An obvious disadvantage of using this method of teaching is that
students will not become aware of the complexities and difficulties to be
encountered in real world interviewing and participant observation. These
issues could also lend themselves to interesting discussions for students about
the relation between 'virtual' and 'real' fieldwork.
The findings of this project are exploratory in so far as the teaching and
research consisted of small groups and brief sessions. Yet in the light of the
promising results, it can be suggested that this project points to an overall
positive balance of benefits of using multi-user VR. What is needed now are
more systematic comparisons as to the benefits of teaching and participant
observation using multi-user VR as against using conventional methods for
teaching and research.
Virtual Environments Visualisation