Miriam Mulders, Kristian H. Träg, Lilly Kaninski, Lara Rahner
{"title":"Past lives, present learners: Future directions for history education in virtual reality","authors":"Miriam Mulders, Kristian H. Träg, Lilly Kaninski, Lara Rahner","doi":"10.1016/j.cexr.2025.100114","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the relationship between presence and learning outcomes in Virtual Reality (VR) environments, with a focus on both cognitive and affective learning. Using the <em>Anne Frank VR House</em>, a virtual replica of a hiding place for a group of Jewish people during World War II, 74 university students explored how the feeling of presence affects knowledge acquisition and perspective-taking. The results showed a significant positive correlation between presence and perspective-taking, but no effect on knowledge acquisition, meaning that a higher sense of presence predicted higher perspective-taking, while knowledge scores did not. These findings highlight VR's potential to create a sense of presence and thus foster emotional engagement in history education, suggesting that empathy-driven learning may be an effective way to engage students with complex socio-political issues beyond factual knowledge.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100320,"journal":{"name":"Computers & Education: X Reality","volume":"7 ","pages":"Article 100114"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Computers & Education: X Reality","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949678025000224","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between presence and learning outcomes in Virtual Reality (VR) environments, with a focus on both cognitive and affective learning. Using the Anne Frank VR House, a virtual replica of a hiding place for a group of Jewish people during World War II, 74 university students explored how the feeling of presence affects knowledge acquisition and perspective-taking. The results showed a significant positive correlation between presence and perspective-taking, but no effect on knowledge acquisition, meaning that a higher sense of presence predicted higher perspective-taking, while knowledge scores did not. These findings highlight VR's potential to create a sense of presence and thus foster emotional engagement in history education, suggesting that empathy-driven learning may be an effective way to engage students with complex socio-political issues beyond factual knowledge.