Worth a Thousand Words? The Usefulness of Immersive Virtual Reality for Learning in Cultural Heritage Settings

The goal of this paper is to investigate whether immersive virtual reality is suitable for learning about archaeology and the past in cultural heritage settings. To that end it presents the conclusions related to learning from the visitors' survey undertaken in 2007 by the Museology Laboratory of the University of the Aegean at the Hellenic Cosmos (the exhibition centre of the Foundation of the Hellenic World) in Athens, and contrasts these with other similar studies. This project was aimed at comparing the learning outcomes, perception and use by audiences of two different virtual reality systems and a related exhibition. It included qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data gathered through in situ observations, interviews with museum educators and face-to-face questionnaires with visitors. The results confirmed that, as previous studies have shown, virtual reality systems allow a different kind of learning, but also questioned the common believe about their advantage for children in comparison with other interpretation methods.

[1]  Mikel Asensio,et al.  Modelos de aprendizaje-enseñanza de la Historia , 1989 .

[2]  Martijn J. Schuemie,et al.  Research on Presence in Virtual Reality: A Survey , 2001, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[3]  Ken Pimentel,et al.  Virtual reality - through the new looking glass , 1993 .

[4]  S. Wheeler,et al.  Promoting creative thinking through the use of ICT , 2002, J. Comput. Assist. Learn..

[5]  Sofia Pescarin,et al.  VR Applications, New Devices and Museums: Visitors’ Feedback and Learning. A Preliminary Report , 2006 .

[6]  DESIGN EDUCATION IN THE ERA OF TECHNOLOGY : CONSIDERING VISUAL PERCEPTION , 2003 .

[7]  Maria Economou,et al.  Exploring the suitability of virtual reality interactivity for exhibitions through an integrated evaluation: the case of the Ename Museum , 2007 .

[8]  Laia Pujol Tost,et al.  A Critical Examination of Presence Applied to Cultural Heritage , 2007 .

[9]  Maria Economou,et al.  Educational tool or expensive toy? Evaluating VR evaluation and its relevance for virtual heritage , 2006 .

[10]  Jianwei Zhang,et al.  Supporting scientific discovery learning in a simulation environment , 2003, J. Comput. Assist. Learn..

[11]  Kimberley Marie Osberg,et al.  Constructivism in practice: The case for meaning-making in the virtual world , 1997 .

[12]  E. Dale.  Audio-visual methods in teaching , 1946 .

[13]  Maria Roussou.  Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality and Informal Education , 2000 .

[14]  Dimitrios Buhalis,et al.  Visitors' Evaluations of ICTs Used in Cultural Heritage , 2005, VAST.

[15]  Maria Economou,et al.  Evaluating the Social Context of ICT Applications in Museum Exhibitions , 2006, VAST.

[16]  Maria Roussou,et al.  Hellenic Cultural Heritage through Immersive Virtual Archaeology , 2004 .