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Suitability of Immersive 2D Environments for Tertiary Education using the Gather Environment as an Example

Authors:
Gerhard Hube
Kevin Pfeffel

Keywords: Virtual Learning Environments; Online Teaching; Tertiary Education; 2D Environments; Desktop virtual reality

Abstract:
In the last two years, university teaching has been strongly influenced by online formats, mainly by video conference systems. Beyond that, there are also some practical examples for the use of immersive environments in higher education, mainly focused on the usage of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) environments. However, this study aims to see if immersive 2D environments are also holistically suitable for teaching in terms of presence, participation, collaboration, and active learning for higher education, as they can offer advantages over video conferencing systems, but are not as costly as VR and AR solutions. A Master's program at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt was chosen for the study. The selected course was held completely in an immersive 2D environment over one semester. Accompanying the course, subjects were asked to complete the Online Learning Environment Survey (OLLES) questionnaire weekly for analysis. Thereby a descriptive evaluation of the questionnaire takes place. All dimensions of the OLLES questionnaire achieve high to very high values. From a purely descriptive point of view, it can therefore be assumed that the used immersive 2D environment is holistically suitable as a learning environment in the tertiary sector. Nevertheless, this should be further explored in future studies by also comparing different courses (immersive 2D environments, video conferencing systems, VR/AR environments, and real-world teaching lectures) to make even stronger statements.

Pages: 44 to 52

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2022

Publication date: June 26, 2022

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4138

ISBN: 978-1-61208-982-9

Location: Porto, Portugal

Dates: from June 26, 2022 to June 30, 2022