Using 3D virtual environments to facilitate students in constructivist learning
Introduction
Three-dimensional virtual worlds on the Internet have emerged as a popular trend in digital world in the recent decade due to advancement in computing technology and network infrastructure. Virtual worlds such as Second Life, World of Warcraft, Sony Playstation Home and Xbox Live have gained vast popularity and worldwide success. Taking Second Life as an example, according to the statistic provided by Linden Lab — the creator of Second Life, the number of unique users in the Second Life exceeds 750,000 in 2010, and they spent more than 105 million hours in the virtual online world (Linden Lab, 2010).
A virtual world is a computer-generated, boundaryless, immersive “game-like” environment often equipped with three-dimensional graphics that resembles the real world [21]. Users can create in-world characters, known as avatars, to represent themselves in the virtual world and participate in different kinds of activities. User can communicate and interact with other users using body language, voice and text messages. The use of multi-channel expressive communications in the virtual world allows users to communicate and convey their emotions through the Internet in a more real-world-like setting [7].
In light of various special and unique features provided by virtual worlds, there is an opportunity of using virtual worlds for educational purpose. Despite the fact that virtual worlds are mainly for entertainment purpose, it has been suggested that they have great potential to become innovative education platform in the future, providing students with real-world-like experiential learning.
Universities and educational institutions have recently started to study the potential of using virtual worlds for teaching and learning. For example, the Harvard Law School has offered “virtual courses” in Second Life. During the courses, the instructor and students interacted with each other inside the virtual world environment and the overall responses have been very positive [6]. Many other schools have also set up campus or classrooms inside Second Life, including Drexel University, Emory University, New York University, Nottingham University, Ohio University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Florida, University of Southern California, University of Notre Dame, and Virginia Tech, among others [26].
Learning in virtual world environment possesses great potential. Although many schools have started using virtual worlds for teaching and learning activities, there is a lack of empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of using virtual worlds as an educational platform. It is desirable to explore the potential of this platform and to study its effectiveness as a learning technology and the impact of virtual world on students' learning activities. However, most existing studies only involve the perceived usefulness of 3D virtual world environment. Very few studies investigate why virtual world learning can facilitate learning.
The paper is structured as following: Section 2 reviews related research. Research questions are posed in Section 3. Section 4 discussed the research methodology of our study. The data obtained from our study are presented and discussed in Section 5. We conclude our study in Section 6.
Section snippets
Virtual world learning
Virtual world learning or e-learning has been increasingly popular worldwide as information and Internet technologies advance. The topic of e-learning, especially virtual world learning has drawn a lot of research attention. Platforms such as Second Life and Active World are easily available on the Internet for educational purpose. Lots of educational institutions and universities have already set up their own learning platform on the Internet, trying to learn about and utilize this new
Research hypotheses
With many studies and research demonstrating the effectiveness of virtual learning environment in the last section, we would like to investigate the potential of using 3D virtual environments to facilitate constructivist learning. Through this research, we would like to study how virtual worlds can allow students to achieve better learning outcomes by a constructivist process in the virtual world. Constructivism focuses on learner-centered learning so that learners can construct knowledge by
Methodology
In this research, we developed a virtual business office and a computer server room in the virtual world environment Second Life. Second Life was chosen as our platform because it is the largest and the most popular virtual world environment. Many other educational institutions have set up their virtual campuses and learning facilities in Second Life. A piece of virtual land was rented inside Second Life, on which a building and classroom resembling the real buildings in our university and a
Data analysis and discussions
In total 105 students attended the class and completed both the task and the post-task questionnaire. The experimental group (using Second Life) contained 49 students while the control group (using video) contained 56. All of them performed the given task on identifying security vulnerabilities and their answers were scored by a teaching assistant.
The students from both groups were asked to evaluate their learning experience in terms of different aspects of perceived learning outcomes in the
Conclusions and future work
In general, most students evaluated the Second Life learning experience as rewarding and interesting. The Second Life learning experience provided students with a chance to be situated in an office and server room setting, identifying the security vulnerabilities found in the office. The Second Life learning experience utilized the advantages of 3D Virtual World to give students a unique learning experience. By making use of virtual objects created or easily available in the Second Life, a
Acknowledgment
The project was supported in part by the following grant: “Exploring the Use of Three-Dimensional Virtual Worlds for Teaching and Learning Activities,” HKU Earmarked Teaching Development Grant (project # 10100316).
Michael Chau is an associate professor in the School of Business, Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hong Kong. He received a Ph.D. degree in management information systems from the University of Arizona and a B.Sc. degree in computer science and information systems from the University of Hong Kong. His current research interests include information retrieval, web mining, data mining, social media, electronic commerce, and security informatics. His research has appeared in
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Michael Chau is an associate professor in the School of Business, Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hong Kong. He received a Ph.D. degree in management information systems from the University of Arizona and a B.Sc. degree in computer science and information systems from the University of Hong Kong. His current research interests include information retrieval, web mining, data mining, social media, electronic commerce, and security informatics. His research has appeared in journals such as ACM Transactions on MIS, ACM Transactions on IS, Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, IEEE Computer, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of American Society for Information Science and Technology, and MIS Quarterly. He is the author of more than 100 articles and has been ranked as the #14 most productive researcher in the field of information science in the period 1998–2007 in a research productivity study. More information can be found at http://www.business.hku.hk/~mchau/.
Ada Wong is a lecturer in the Department of Supply Chain Management at the Hang Seng Management College in Hong Kong. She received a Ph.D. degree from the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick in the UK. Her current research interests include ERP implementation, project management, mobile user interface, information system strategic planning, business intelligence, information system security and control.
Minhong Wang is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include technology-enhanced learning, complex problem solving and learning, knowledge management, adult learning and human performance, and artificial intelligence. She has published papers in Computers & Education, Information & Management, IEEE Transactions on Education, Educational Technology & Society, Innovations in Education & Teaching International, Expert Systems with Applications, Knowledge-based Systems, Journal of Knowledge Management, among others.
Songnia Lai is an undergraduate student of the University College Birmingham in Marketing Management and a research assistant at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include virtual learning, social networking, and entertainment.
Kristal W. Y. Chan was a research assistant and received a B.B.A. degree in information systems from the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include virtual environment and e-learning.
Tim M. H. Li is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong. He received a M.Sc. and B.Eng. degree in computer science from the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include game-based learning, Internet-based intervention, social network and blog mining.
Debbie Chu received a M.Sc. degree in computer science from the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include supply chain management, multimedia, electronic commerce, and human computer interaction.
Ian K. W. Chan received a M.Sc. degree in computer science from the University of Hong Kong and a B.Sc degree in computer science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His interests include multimedia and security informatics.
Wai-ki Sung is a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. She received a M.Sc. degree in management information systems from the University of Arizona and a B.Eng. degree in industrial and manufacturing system engineering from the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include safety knowledge management, Web 2.0 applications, e-learning, and human computer interaction.