  Recent research indicates that most post-secondary students in North America
"felt overwhelming anxiety" in the past few years, negatively affecting
well-being and academic performance. Further research revealed that other
emotions, biases, perceptions, and negative thoughts, can similarly affect
student academic performance. To address this problem, we classify these
counterproductive mindsets, including anxiety, into Scarcity Mindset, a
self-limiting perspective that appropriates cognitive bandwidth required for
essential processes like learning in favour of addressing more critical needs
or perceived insufficiencies. Through a multi-disciplinary literature analysis
of ideas in cognitive science, learning theories and mindsets, and current
technology approaches that are suited to address the limitations of scarcity
thinking, we identify strategies to help transition students to a more positive
Abundance Mindsets. We demonstrate that these priming intervention strategies
can transfer to leading-edge digital environments, particularly Virtual Reality
(VR). Offering further insights into the findings of our two previously
presented studies, we argue that priming interventions related to preparatory
activities and the context priming are transferable to virtual reality
environments. As such, building on our multidisciplinary research insights, we
propose a comprehensive priming model that exploits priming techniques in an
iterative process called Cyclical Priming Methodology (CPM). These intervention
strategies can focus on student preparation, motivation, reflection, the
context of the learning environment, and other aspects of the learning process.
Building on CPM, we further propose a technology implementation within VR
called Virtual Reality Experience Priming (VREP) and discuss the process to
embed CPM/VREP activities within the Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) cycle.
