Instructional Usability and Learner-User eXperience Assessment in a Virtual Reality Educational Milieu: A Deductive Tech-Instructionality Model from EdTech

Educational Technology (EdTech) lacks a foundational, formal, scientific, epistemic theory. Therefore, it lacks native constructs/variables and an epistemological object of study for scientifically deploying its work. This study determines the existence (ontology) of the theorized constructs Instructional Usability (UsI) and Learner-User eXperience (LUX) and defines their characterization (epistemology). Both constructs were modeled and instrumented. Furthermore, a Tech-Instructionality Model (TIM) was theorized and developed in this paper, both analytically and empirically. The model integrates UsI and LUX as two pairs of constructs linked with two EdTech epistemological objects of study, the instructional interface and the instructional interaction in two assessment modalities, testing mode (user-learner view) and inspection mode (expert/designer view). Two instruments were developed and validated in this study for testing mode, the Instructional Usability Scale (SUsI) and the Learner-User eXperience Questionnaire (QLUX). Both instruments were tested in a non-immersive virtual reality educational milieu during the academic lockdown of the Covid19 pandemic. The results show that both SUsI and QLUX consistently measured UsI and LUX, thus, providing a valid assessment for tech-instructionality and a foundation for constructing a scientific theory of EdTech.