Wang, Rui (2015) The virtual learning experience: Learning styles, task complexity and presence in the context of emerging VR technologies. PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Abstract
This study investigates how emerging virtual reality technologies impact the way architecture and construction students engage in the higher education learning context. The work takes a broad perspective, bridging experiential learning theory, task complexity in educational objectives, a range of emerging virtual reality technologies and related issues such as presence and immersion and how all of these factors act in concert to influence learning styles. The principal aim of the research is to determine whether and under what conditions emerging virtual reality technologies prescribe how architecture and building students choose to learn.The study has two elements. The first element is a longitudinal and the second element is a between-group study. Learning is measured in terms of Kolb’s learning styles grid using standard and modified versions of the learning style inventory (LSI). A series of controlled experiments are undertaken to test for the impact that specific factors identified from the literature have on the preferred learning style of the user. Data is analysed using a variety of standard statistical tests and visualisation techniques developed specifically for this research. The results have significant implications for both theoretical and practical perspectives. From a theoretical perspective, the results reveal fundamental flaws in current learning style theory and how learning styles have been previously assigned to different learning cohorts. The results also strongly demonstrate that learning, considered in the current terms of learning styles, is not constrained or inhibited in any way by the increasing use of virtual reality technologies in the context of architecture and construction learning. The proposition that computers limit the architecture learning experience is not valid in the context of this study.From a practical standpoint, this thesis suggests that the educational challenge is not to design a learning environment that reflects the specificity of a particular cohort, but rather how best to accommodate the variability that occurs across and within individual preferences in architecture and construction higher education.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Newton, Sidney and Lowe, Russell |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | virtual reality technology; learning styles; learning experience; higher education |
| Index terms: | complexity, statistical test, visualization, preference, experiment, virtual reality technology, learning style, experiential learning, variability, educational objective, learning experience, presence, higher education, inventory |
| Subjects: | learning methods, virtual reality, data collection methods, design practice, statistical analysis, systems engineering, educational institutions, environmental science, curriculum development, inventory management, decision-making and reasoning |
| Topics: | Engineering Principles, Sustainability, Supply Chain Management, Education, Research Practice, Digital Applications, Design Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here