Virtual contexts play a crucial role in assisting students' learning. Researchers have taken advantage of the potential of immersive virtual reality (VR) for situating students in inaccessible places, and for engaging them in learning activities. Meanwhile, several previous studies have reported that, in VR-based learning contexts, students'…

Using OpenSimulator, we constructed a 3D virtual playground that affords competition-themed social gaming, role-play gaming and design-themed architectural gaming among high-functioning autistic (HFA) children. A mixed-method, multi-case study was conducted to examine the association between the game task and setting features, learners'…

Despite an extensive history of use in teaching Political Science subjects, long-term scholarly studies of online role plays are uncommon. This paper redresses that balance by presenting five years of data on the Middle East Politics Simulation. This online role play has been run since the 1990s and underwent significant technical upgrade in…

In order to understand (1) what kind of students can be facilitated through the help of three-dimensional virtual learning environment (3D VLE), and (2) the relationship between a conventional test (ie, paper and pencil test) and the 3D VLE used in this study, the study designs a 3D virtual supermarket (3DVS) to help students transform their role…

The emergence of new technologies such as three-dimensional virtual worlds brings new opportunities for teaching and learning. We conducted an action research approach to the analysis of how teaching and learning of computer programming at the university level could be developed within the Second Life virtual world. Results support the notion that…

Traditionally, at least according to popular wisdom, learning took place in venues that were custom-designed for the purpose. The purpose, given the evidence of the artefacts with which we are confronted, seems to have been the educational equivalent of the production line that so succinctly characterised the industrialisation of society. One…

This paper describes an assessment of a web-based interview simulation designed to teach empathetic helping skills. The system includes an animated character acting as a client and responses designed to recreate a simulated role-play, a common assessment method used for teaching these skills. The purpose of this study was to determine whether…