A Study on the Users' Experience in Learning Using a Virtual Reality Laboratory for Medical Sciences

As a result of the worldwide dissemination of COVID-19, educational institutions across the globe, particularly those that serve students in the field of science, have been mandated to close their doors. Consequently, educators and students have increasingly relied on educational technology to obtain a diverse array of resources. This research aims to construct a science laboratory in virtual reality by employing the ADDIE Methodology, a well-established structure for designing instructional programs. Additionally, the study aims to evaluate the impact of the virtual reality laboratory on the level of immersion that 37 science students experienced during the learning process. This evaluation will compare the students' sense of presence before and after utilizing the facility. The concept of presence within the context of virtual reality (VR) pertains to the experience of being fully immersed in a digital environment, such that the user's cognitive processes interpret it as being authentic. The degree of immersion users perceive substantially impacts their engagement, conduct, and affective responses while engaging with virtual reality. For this experimental investigation, the participants were segregated into two distinct cohorts. Group 1 consisted of twenty participants who viewed scientific films in two dimensions, whereas Group 2 comprised seventeen participants who engaged in science education through a virtual reality laboratory. The findings suggest a significant presence in both cohorts, with the virtual reality (VR) cohort exhibiting superior performance compared to the other group. The present study offers significant findings for educators and software developers engaged in creating virtual reality (VR) resources for science instruction. In forthcoming studies of instructional technology that utilize virtual reality, it is suggested that cognitive load be scrutinized as a variable. In general, this research adds to the increasing corpus of evidence that showcases the favorable and comprehensive impacts of immersive learning in education. [For the full proceedings, see ED654100.]