EcoRaft Evaluations

The Round Earth Project - Collaborative VR for Conceptual Learning

Johnson, A., Moher, T., Ohlsson, S., Gillingham, M., The Round Earth Project: Collaborative VR for Conceptual Learning. In IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol 19 no 6, November / December, 1999, pp. 60-69.

http://www.evl.uic.edu/aej/papers/cga99/cga99rev.html

"The Round Earth Project is a collaboration among researchers in computer science, education and psychology. It investigates two alternative pedagogical strategies for teaching children that the Earth is spherical, and the implications of that fact. One strategy, which we term the ‘transformationalist’ approach, attempts to effect conceptual change by breaking down the children’s prior models. The alternative ‘selectionist’ strategy, in contrast, attempts to effect learning in an alternative setting (in our case, a small diameter asteroid), free of pre-existing biases, and to relate that learning back to the target domain: the Earth."

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Virtual reality is used to simulate much of the action in the project. The researchers hope that virtual reality will affect the children's capacity for conceptual learning. They also hope that introducing new, fundamental ideas will replace the learners' existing ideas. Three pilot studies were executed. The first study was to familiarize the subjects with the exhibits. For the second study, the researchers conducted pre-test interviews to assess the subjects' knowledge of the topic at hand and then questioned the subjects after the interaction. The results from the second study were "disheartening" because the subjects had not yet abandoned their existing ideas. In the third study, the researchers brought in 2d models to demonstrate the difference between 2d and 3d models, but the subjects did not maintain consistency between the two models. Although some of the subjects still held on to their existing ideas, others demonstrated temporary effective learning immediately after the experiment but not the next day and others appeared to reflect persistent learning of some of the target knowledge components. Each case study was designed to probe for understanding of particular topics. The researchers designed a set of questions to ask before and after the subjects' interaction and measured whether or not they understood the topics at hand. In particular, the researchers asked them whether or not they understood the concepts behind particular words such as "horizon" (which meant little to the subjects). The researchers created both written and verbal questions to test what the subjects learned. The subjects treated the experience more like a game and this negatively affected their ability to replace their existing ideas with new ones. However, for the subjects who succeeded in changing their ideas did so because of the changes the researchers made in their protocol.

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In this study, the researchers continually improved their evaluation methods. Their ways of evaluating included familiarizing the subjects with the exhibit [by interaction and also by providing supervised guidance], questioning the subjects on what happened and how it came to do so, introducing new methods when the previous studies failed to show any improvement [i.e., bringing in 2d models to distinguish it from 3d models], and post-game interviews.

In terms of the EcoRaft Project, I think it might be helpful for us to introduce some sort of guidance during our subjects' interaction with the installation if need be. This can be done by providing sparse hints throughout the gameplay. However, the goal for the Round Earth Project was to dispel any ideas that the Earth is flat-shaped and not spherical. Our goal is not to dispel any ideas but to encourage a more ecological way of thinking.

posted by Anonymous @ 4:31 PM