Creators, classrooms, and cells : designing for the benefits and limitations of learning in immersive virtual reality

In the last few years, the perception of virtual reality (VR) has shifted from an entertaining novelty to an increasingly mainstream technological medium. However, the methods of creating and assessing high-fidelity immersive VR for learning remain nascent. With the growing demands for change in the 21st-century American education system, it is increasingly important for designers and developers to approach the topic of VR for K-12 learning thoughtfully yet critically. This thesis grounds VR within the greater context of technology-mediated learning by examining its affordances, relevant educational frameworks, and cognitive limitations through the academic lenses of pedagogy, cognitive science, and educational psychology. It then utilizes a case study, the CLEVR project, to trace an in-depth example of an ongoing VR game through user feedback, data analysis, and iterative game design. Ultimately, I use findings generated from the CLEVR project to develop recommendations for designing and integrating VR into K-12 classrooms, with the hopes of informing current and future designers about balancing VR's affordances with learning outcomes in order to develop successful immersive learning experiences.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Comparative Media Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Wang, Annie

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eric Klopfer.

• Comparative Media Studies.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127661

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/127661