Work-in-Progress—Using Virtual Reality in Museums to Assist Historical Learning

Abstract

Museums are always looking for new ways to attract and engage their visitors. Virtual reality (VR) is becoming an increasingly viable option for doing this and enables the recreation of historical sites/structures for visitors to explore. This paper describes a VR application being developed in partnership with the Bawdsey Radar Museum to recreate the radar transmitter towers that stood on the site and were pivotal in winning the Battle of Britain. This paper describes the application’s development and discusses user trial results to determine whether VR can be effectively used within a museum setting to assist in historical learning.