Evaluation of virtual learning environments

The Virtual Life Skills project describes a user-centred design approach to building virtual environments intended to provide a practice arena for skill learning in children and adults with learning disabilities. In the first year of the project four modules of a Virtual City have been developed: a house, a supermarket, a cafe and a transport system (see Brown et al, this issue for a description of the project). Evaluation of the project has been concerned as much with the design of the virtual learning environments (VLEs) and issues of usability and access as with monitoring skill learning and transfer to the real world. Two approaches were taken to the evaluation the four virtual learning environments. For three of the VLEs, Supermarket, Cafe and Transport, a test-retest experimental design method was used. This compared user performance in real world tasks with the same tasks presented in the VLE. Expert assessment was used to evaluate the Virtual House, looking at usability and appropriateness of the learning scenarios. It was found that VLEs can provide interesting, motivating learning environments, which are accessible to users with special needs. However, individuals differed in the amount of support required to use the input devices and achieve task objectives in the VLE. Expert and user review methods indicate that the VLEs are seen to be representative of real world tasks and that users are able to learn some basic skills. However, it would be unrealistic to expect transfer of skill over a short time period of learning as used in this project. Further testing is needed to establish the longitudinal learning effects and to develop more reliable techniques to allow users to express their own opinions by themselves.