Background: Immersive virtual reality (IVR) is a new technology that could motivate learners, but also could contain distracting elements that increase cognitive demands on learners. In contrast, learning with conventional media, such as a narrated slideshow could be less motivating, but also less distracting. Objectives: This experiment…

Background: Benefited from advances in technology, virtual reality (VR) has been widely applied to learning content in operational training as well as hands-on courses. However, most current studies tend to evaluate learning effectiveness in this application, and few were focused on how learners can be benefited from transferring the knowledge…

Background: Owing to the exponential growth of three-dimensional (3D) environments amongst researchers and educators to create simulation games (SGs) in primary education, there is a growing interest to examine their potential support in computer science courses instead of visual programming environments. Objectives: This study explores the…

The main objective of this study is to determine whether boys and girls learn better when the characteristics of the pedagogical agent are matched to the gender of the learner while learning in immersive virtual reality (VR). Sixty-six middle school students (33 females) were randomly assigned to learn about laboratory safety with one of two…

This study examined the effect of scaffolding students who learned by designing assignments for a computer simulation on the physics topic of alternating circuits. We compared the students' assignments and the knowledge acquired in a scaffolded group (N = 23) and a non-scaffolded group (N = 19). The scaffold consisted of a Design Sheet that guided…