Browsing by Subject "http://www.yso.fi/onto/yso/p7990"
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(2023)The use of virtual reality learning environments is rapidly expanding in various disciplines. However, there are only a few comparative studies in education. This thesis explores the effectiveness of a virtual reality (VR) and a physical learning environment on students’ learning outcomes and motivation by comparing the virtual reality and the physical learning environment during one day of studies. The participants were fourth-year mechanical engineering bachelor students (N = 14) at a university of applied sciences in Finland. The intervention was implemented as part of the course module, where students learned the structure and the functioning of the harvester head engine, which was part of a logging machine. A quasi-experimental design was set up, and in the morning, one-half of the students started their studies in virtual reality and the other half in the physical learning environment. In the afternoon, student groups switched learning environments. Motivation and learning outcomes were measured by pre-test and post-test questionnaires. Additionally, students’ learning outcomes were measured by completed study tasks during the interventions and by observing. The teacher assessed the data related to learning as grades. The one-way repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to analyse the effectiveness of the learning environments on motivation and learning outcomes. The development of learning outcomes was statistically significant (p < .00) in both learning environments during the morning and the afternoon. No difference was observed between the learning outcomes gained in the two learning environments. There was an interaction (p < .01) between intrinsic motivation and learning environments in the morning. While in the afternoon, intrinsic motivation developed positively (p < .01) in both environments. The results suggest that studying in two different learning environments maintains interest and helps to achieve significant learning outcomes during the one-day studies. When studying began in a physical learning environment, intrinsic motivation developed positively throughout the day.
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(2020)Käsittelen tässä poikkitieteellisessä tutkielmassa virtuaalitodellisuuden (VR) teknologian, käsitteistön, historian ja subjektiivisen kokemuksen aspekteja estetiikan ja erityisesti Maurice Merleau-Pontyn ruumiinfenomenologian näkökulmasta. Tutkielman tavoitteena on esitellä uusia teoreettisia näkökulmia nykyajan ja tulevaisuuden murroksessa olevan media- ja tietoteknologiaympäristön analyysiin erityisesti virtuaalitodellisuuden tiiviin kehollisuuden ja aistimellisuuden vuoksi. Ensimmäisessä luvussa keskityn virtuaalitodellisuuden käsitteellisen, diskursiivisen ja teknologisen kehityksen taustoittamiseen. Virtuaalitodellisuuden määrittely on pitkä ja monitahoinen prosessi, jossa voidaan hyödyntää teknisiä, kokemuksellisia ja diskursiivisia lähestymistapoja. Tekninen lähestymistapa keskittyy virtuaalitodellisuuden järjestelmäprosessien kuvailuun, kokemuksellinen lähestymistapa virtuaalitodellisuuden käyttäjän ominaisuuksiin ja kokemukseen ja diskursiivinen lähestymistapa suhteuttaa virtuaalitodellisuuden sitä ympäröivään sosiaalikulttuuriseen ja historialliseen ympäristöön. Nämä viitekehykset muodostavat yhdessä monipuolisen tulkintakentän virtuaalitodellisuuden teknologian analyysia varten. Luvun päättää virtuaalitodellisuuslaitteiston ominaisuuksien ja toiminnan esittely. Laitteisto on ensimmäinen kolmesta esittelemästäni virtuaalitodellisuuskokemuksen osasta. Tutkielman toisessa luvussa hyödynnän virtuaalitodellisuuden määritelmiä tietotekniikan ja viestinnän näkökulmasta, päälähteinäni William R. Shermanin & Alan B. Craigin teos Understanding Virtual Reality; Interface, application and design, sekä Steven M. LaVallen teos Virtual Reality. Sovellan käsitteitä, kuten immersiota, telepresenssiä ja interaktiivisuutta ja tarkastelen virtuaalimaailmojen ominaisuuksia, materiaalisuutta, tulkintaa ja sisältötyyppejä estetiikan näkökulmasta. Erityisesti immersio ja esteettinen sitoutuminen ovat antoisia näkökulmia virtuaalitodellisuuden kokemuksen ja virtuaalimaailman interaktiivisuuden arvioimisessa. Virtuaalimaailma on toinen kolmesta virtuaalitodellisuuskokemuksen osasta. Tutkielman kolmas luku alkaa katsauksella Maurice Merleau-Pontyn ruumiinfenomenologiaan ja hänen ajattelussaan esiintyviin teemoihin ja käsitteisiin. Fenomenologinen reduktio ja luonnollisen asenteen kiertäminen ovat Merleau-Pontylle tärkeitä välineitä filosofisen ihmettelyn ylläpitämiseksi, mikä mahdollistaa ilmiöiden avautumisen sellaisena kuin ne ovat. Maailmassa toimiva ja siten maailmaan sitoutuva ruumis on Merleau-Pontylle ihimisen kokemuksen ja tiedon alkuperä, joka omassa materiaalisuudessaan ja omintakeisuudessaan mahdollistaa lajityypillisen ja yksilöllisen havaitsemisen. Sen lisäksi esittelen luvussa havaitsemisen, näkemisen, maalaamisen ja lihan käsitteet. Kolmas luku esittelee Merleau-Pontyn filosofian pohjalta myös virtuaalitodellisuuskokemuksen kolmannen välttämättömän osan, virtuaalisubjektin, joka koostuu sekä ruumiillisesta toimijasta että hänen yksilöllisestä suhteestaan virtuaalimaailmaan ja virtuaalitodellisuuslaitteistoon. Virtuaalitodellisuuskokemuksen fenomenologinen analyysi perustuu yksittäisen virtuaalisubjektin omakohtaiseen perspektiiviin ja aktiiviseen osallistumiseen. Koska virtuaalitodellisuuden avulla voidaan tutkia lähes mitä vain tuottaen tapahtumasta uskottava ensimmäisen persoonan kokemus, on virtuaalitodellisuudessa synnytetyn tiedon ja fyysisen maailman välinen suhde hyvin antoisa tapauskohtainen fenomenologinen tutkimuskohde. Merleau-Pontyn fenomenologinen metodi toimii myös virtuaalitodellisuudessa, mutta ihmettelevän asenteen tuottama kokemus täytyy suhteuttaa virtuaalimaailman symboliseen sisältöön. Aktiivisen kokijan perspektiivi on ainoa mahdollinen tapa virtuaalitodellisuuden avautumiseen sellaisena kuin se on, sillä virtuaalitodellisuus määritelmällisesti syntyy virtuaalimaailman, laitteiston ja subjektin aistimaailman ja kehon vuorovaikutuksesta. Subjektin kokemuksella on virtuaalitodellisuudessa paljon valtaa määrittelyn suhteen ja esimerkiksi tekijyyden ja tulkinnan kysymykset sovelluksen luojan ja sen käyttäjän välillä ovat siksi monimutkaisempia kuin monen muun taiteen lajin parissa. Virtuaalitodellisuuden yhtäaikainen keinotekoisuus ja aistimellinen vakuuttavuus muodostavat haastavan tulkintakentän tulevaisuudessa, jossa mediasisältöjen valta yhteisöjen todellisuuskäsityksen muotoutumisessa kasvaa entisestään.
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(2021)This master’s thesis examines comments for and against virtual reality (VR) as a gaming technology in the context of the VR-only game Half-Life: Alyx. Comments were collected from its online community in the Steam discussion forum, and understood as speech acts. The game is the first in its series to not be playable with a keyboard and mouse. The purpose is to examine the virtual community’s speech acts in connection to social movement mechanisms for taking collective action: social networks, collective identities, conflict action against identified others. This mixed-methods case study’s primary method is qualitative grounded theory. For comparison, additional data was also collected on whether the commenters purchased the game or not. The research material consists of comments before and after it was released. Commenters are grouped based on their comment sentiment toward VR as positive, negative, neutral (mixed), or unclear. These sentiment groups are visualized as social networks. In results, Half-Life is modernistically constructed as a technology-advancing gaming series. The advancement in its latest release Half-Life: Alyx is contributed to its use of VR technology. The game being playable VR-only divides the virtual community’s reception of the game, and the technology. Disagreements concern the technology’s economic expenses, gaming experiences, and distinctiveness as a gaming medium. The shared collective identity of “the Half-Life community” is a PC gaming community, which consists of “Half-Life fans” who consider themselves to be keyboard-mouse gamers, and gamers who are part of a “VR community.” They use different conflict strategies against the identified other. In time, the commenters became less polarized. Furthermore, they entertained which of the mediums or what future technology will be used in Half-Life 3. In essence, the main phenomenon of the gamer divisions around Half-Life games’ hardware requirements but later uniting as a community is named “The Half-Life cycle,” although not all commenters agree that VR belongs in the same technology-advancing narrative as the previous technologies. The hardware and software developer Valve is discussed in regards to the company benefiting from the divided Half-Life community, whether or not a “divide and conquer” strategy was intended. Furthermore, the main phenomenon Half-Life cycle is discussed from multiple perspectives. Further research suggestions relate to the distinctions between virtual communities and social movements, what a technological movement would look like, and the understanding that different communities can be divided similarly to social movements.
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(2019)The purpose of this study is to implement immersive virtual reality (VR) technology as part of an environmental studies project in the actual complex school reality and analyze both the students’ and their teachers’ experiences and observations on the use of VR in learning and teaching. This study focuses on the user experiences and affordances that the appliance of VR technology brings forth in education. There are but few earlier studies on similar topics, most of which have been conducted in clinical settings. Three teachers and 59 students, 5-6th graders, from two different Finnish elementary schools participated in this study. The participants were all volunteers and took part in a nationwide VISIOT-project, coordinated by a nationwide Innokas Network. Its main purpose was to provide opportunities for trying out and developing virtual reality, augmented reality and Internet of things -technologies in education. The three teachers in this study applied a VR system that consisted of HTC Vive -device and Google Earth VR -program. The different ways in which the teachers ended up implementing the VR system turned out to be an important research topic in this study. The project went on for over three months, spanning from December 2017 to April 2018. The students assessed the use of the VR system during and after the project. Their experiences became another key research area in this study. Data was gathered with online questionnaires, pre and post-surveys for students, a test of the students’ spatial reasoning abilities, and with a pre-survey and innovative post interviews for the teachers. This mostly qualitative data was analyzed with clustering content analysis, where I would find similarities and differences in the participants’ answers and place them in schematized categories. The teacher’s encountered technical, spatial and temporal challenges, as well as challenges in orchestrating the implementation of the VR system. It appeared that VR’s implementation in education demanded more innovative scripts and different spatial, temporal and pedagogical arrangements than the two studied schools were used to. Albeit, the students adapted to the use of VR technology rather quickly and had a very positive emotional experience with it. The VR system was mostly used as a motivational addition to learning. Besides the visually enhanced exploration of the Earth and tourist role-play, the VR system’s actualized affordances included enjoyment and interest, realism and mental immersion, and mastery experiences. Students found the device as very comfortable and the program as user-friendly. Their conception of virtual reality was evidently affected by the applied VR system and its uses during the virtual field trip project. Despite of this, the students were able to imagine diverse learning worlds for VR. In addition to typical categories, they imagined high fantasy worlds and time travelling to the future. By and large, the students appeared willing to use VR technology again in the future. Their post-survey measures for self-efficacy and interest to engage with the technology were relatively high. The self-reported self-efficacy of boys was statistically significantly higher than the girls corresponding. The students found the VR program to be a credible source mostly due to the virtual world’s realism or resemblance with their experiences of the real world. Altogether, VR technology appears to be something that these 11-12-year-old students would gladly include in their learning environment, on the other hand, the teachers rightfully felt that the implemented VR system was too complex and demanding for permanent inclusion.
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