The article on Virtual Reality and Feedback of Stan van Ginkel et al which is accepted for publication by Computers & Education is now online. The question of the study reported in this article is if oral presentation competence of first-year students in Higher Education can be improved by using Virtual Reality Glasses which simulate audiences for practicing oral presentations. The VR technology is specifically employed to generate specific feedback for the student. Effects were studied of the feedback generated by the VR system on three components of presentation competence components: cognition, behaviour and attitudes towards presenting. The study was designed as a field experiment. The control condition consisted of a face-to-face presentation task and expert feedback. The students’ performance was measured using various instruments: pre- and post-test multiple-choice tests, validated rubrics, and self-evaluation instruments. The results showed significant improvements from pre- to post-test in all three presentation competence components, but without a difference between the VR- and control-condition. Given the high level of quality of the face-to-face oral presentation courses, which have been taught in this context for many years already, this result is quite promising as it takes away the hypothetical barrier that a VR-application in this situation might damage the quality of the learning experience. Furthermore, the self-evaluations of the VR-students showed that they appreciated the level of detail and analysis of the VR-generated feedback they received. Because of sample size limitations, the effects found should not be generalised. Future research, employing a larger sample, multiple task performance with VR-technology by individual students during the oral presentation course, which is conducted in a variety of institutes for higher education is needed to see whether the competence effects and positive student evaluations will hold. A key question to be answered in future research is to what extent VR-based oral presentation tasks can be integrated in presentation courses, and whether this can stimulate self-regulated oral presentation learning.
(Free after the Abstract of the article).
Note that the publisher has published this version only for fast access to the article. This is very much appreciated as the use of Virtual Reality in education is mushrooming. So, the version which is online now is not the final version of the article. It will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. But the content of the article will remain the same.
Full reference: Van Ginkel S., Gulikers J., Biemans H.J.A., Noroozi O., Roozen M., Bos T., Van Tilborg R., Van Halteren M. & Mulder M. (2019). Fostering oral presentation competence through a virtual reality-based task for delivering feedback, Computers & Education, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.02.006. See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519300351
