Immersive virtual reality to enhance the spatial awareness of students

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the effectiveness of virtual reality as a medium to enhance the spatial awareness and interest of students in the subject of history in rural Indian schools. Students of rural schools of the Indian village of Kandi in Telangana were provided with a Virtual Reality solution which helped them to view a remote historical place in full immersion. The historical site which was chosen for this project was the Golconda Fort. It was in the same state as that of the school, yet most of the students had not visited the place. Each student was given a 15 minutes session with the Virtual Reality module. In parallel, another set of students were taught about the fort in regular teaching methods. The two set of students were then given a written objective exam to analyze their learning. The two sets were then reversed and combined by giving regular teaching method to the students who used virtual reality previously and vice versa. These students were then given the test and the results were analyzed. It was found that spatial awareness including perception of colors, direction and size increased in the Virtual Reality based system. Factual data was more accurately interpreted when students were provided the information through regular teaching methods.