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Learning Relative Motion Concepts in Immersive and Non-immersive Virtual Environments

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Abstract

The focus of the current study is to understand which unique features of an immersive virtual reality environment have the potential to improve learning relative motion concepts. Thirty-seven undergraduate students learned relative motion concepts using computer simulation either in immersive virtual environment (IVE) or non-immersive desktop virtual environment (DVE) conditions. Our results show that after the simulation activities, both IVE and DVE groups exhibited a significant shift toward a scientific understanding in their conceptual models and epistemological beliefs about the nature of relative motion, and also a significant improvement on relative motion problem-solving tests. In addition, we analyzed students’ performance on one-dimensional and two-dimensional questions in the relative motion problem-solving test separately and found that after training in the simulation, the IVE group performed significantly better than the DVE group on solving two-dimensional relative motion problems. We suggest that egocentric encoding of the scene in IVE (where the learner constitutes a part of a scene they are immersed in), as compared to allocentric encoding on a computer screen in DVE (where the learner is looking at the scene from “outside”), is more beneficial than DVE for studying more complex (two-dimensional) relative motion problems. Overall, our findings suggest that such aspects of virtual realities as immersivity, first-hand experience, and the possibility of changing different frames of reference can facilitate understanding abstract scientific phenomena and help in displacing intuitive misconceptions with more accurate mental models.

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Acknowledgments

This research has been supported in part by US National Science Foundation grant EEC-0935006.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering, Norfolk State University, Norfolk, VA, USA

    Michael Kozhevnikov

  2. Department of Educational Science, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Johannes Gurlitt

  3. Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Maria Kozhevnikov

Authors
  1. Michael Kozhevnikov
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  2. Johannes Gurlitt
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  3. Maria Kozhevnikov
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Kozhevnikov.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Epistemological Belief Questionnaire

Make a cross on the vertical lines that represent your opinions

  1. 1.

    Objects, which are moving in the real world, have one true velocity.

  2. 2.

    There is one true velocity.

  3. 3.

    The movement of the same object can be different from different perspectives.

  4. 4.

    Some objects (e.g., houses, trees, etc.) cannot move relative to you.

  5. 5.

    An object can be seen moving and not moving from different views.

Appendix 2: Relative Motion Problem Solving Questionnaire (an extract of two problems)

Please try to answer the following questionnaires. If you are not able to answer a question, please write “don’t know.”

  1. 1.

    In the figure below, you are in the gray car. Your speedometer reads 40 km/h.

  2. (a)

    What is your car’s speed, relative to a very low flying helicopter going exactly in the same direction as your car, at a speed of 200 km/h relative to the ground?

Answer: _________________km/h.

  1. (b)

    A white truck is traveling toward you. If the truck’s speedometer reads 40 km/h, what is the truck’s speed relative to the helicopter?

Answer:_________________km/h.

  1. 2.

    Two cars are driving along a rectangular road, as shown in the figure below. They are both driving with the same speed.

Circle the tip of the arrow that represents the velocity of the white car from gray car’s frame of reference.

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Kozhevnikov, M., Gurlitt, J. & Kozhevnikov, M. Learning Relative Motion Concepts in Immersive and Non-immersive Virtual Environments. J Sci Educ Technol 22, 952–962 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-013-9441-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-013-9441-0

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