Home // International Journal On Advances in Systems and Measurements, volume 15, numbers 3 and 4, 2022 // View article

2D Virtual Learning Environments for Tertiary Education

Authors:
Gerhard Hube
Kevin Pfeffel
Nicholas Mueller

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. In addition, qualitative interviews were conducted with the subjects afterwards. Thereby a descriptive analysis of the questionnaires takes place. All dimensions of the OLLES questionnaire achieve high to very high values. In doing so, the interviews provide insights into the reasons for the ratings. 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.

Pages: 81 to 92

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2022. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 31, 2022

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-261x