An Empirical Case on Integration of Immersive Virtual Environment into Primary School Science Class

Abstract

Due to the technological advancement, the contemporary education is influenced to a great extent by high quality small displays, accelerometers and mobile devices. In this paper, two immersive virtual reality applications were developed and being applied to science classes in a primary school. During the in-field science classes teaching, students were divided into trios and they observed the resulting immersive VR applications by using VR Cardboard. With guidance of teachers, students were able to observe the virtual eclipse phenomenon from both ground and cosmic perspective staying in the classroom and thinking the reasons of eclipse. This research focuses on the effects of VR immersive applications on students’ knowledge achievements, new technology acceptability, learning behavior and satisfaction. From the questionnaire, it is found that learners have a high degree of acceptability for VR, and they are satisfied about learning in this way except for suffering motion sickness. In addition, VR applications are able to effectively and efficiently help students to understand and memory the knowledge of scientific phenomenon. While in the same time, the effect is slightly worse in terms of understanding the scientific principle.