Virtual reality environments give students a new way to process information and give them something to interact with mentally that is appealing to them. The study documented took in a scientific process on how individuals perform from no immersion that consists of illustrated text, and low immersion that consists of an educational game with a computer display and speakers, and lastly, high immersion that consists of a computer game that comes with a head mounted display and headphones. As you may know, being a student can be difficult as you easily get side tracked from the information being displayed in front of you, so in this study it proved that engaging the brain with interaction on the screen helped individuals retain the information easier and faster.
Arguably, collegiate students spend most of their education completing assignments on their computers. Thus, this generation students prefer methods conducted in this experiment. The technology that we are supplied with today are keys to how we cognitively access our data presented to us, and what we use it for.
Of the two experiments, there were no consistent evidence that applying good design was proven to be a more effective method in one medium than the other. The study conducted experiments using narration and text in equal environments. Given this generation is more technically equip, this equipment concluded that students learn better from a computer-based game-like method.
Therefore, more research needs to be done in order to accurately depict what these experiments are trying to accomplish. Learning styles, along with generations, are evolving, so the various experiments must as well. These experiments are a very statistically supported group of data that is a decent start of how students learn today.
At the beginning this response introduces and explains the methods of the experiment and the relevance to our generation's students. This validates the benefit of the study and the purpose of the experiments. Then, the author begins to note some of the important results that gave the experimenters some ideas about how to better the experience in the classroom for all of the students. Finally he explains the implications this has on our generation and the opinion that this is a good baseline for understanding how students learn today implying this research is contemporarily significant. However, more research is needed to confirm these conclusions.
ReplyDeleteI believe this analysis could have used more detail as well as more explanation of the basis of the experiment, methods, results and finally the implications of the results.
For starters,more clear information about the sample group/size and how this could affect the results of this study is needed to accurately analyze the results and how they relate to students of our generation. For example, were they mostly males, females, science and technology majors or english majors? Were they freshmen or seniors? What (if any) other similarities or differences did the sample group have from a typical college student. In order to analyze the reproducibility and reliability of these studies, the background information is crucial. Studies done with certain groups are not necessarily indicative of the entire general population of college students. Students in one major may have very different reactions to the different forms of immersion as compared to students of another major or field of study.
Additionally, when presenting results it is helpful to explain the implications of the results. Discussing what these results actually mean helps the reader take away the important conclusions that can help them utilize these new methods of immersion. For instance, a professor would want to understand the exact changes they could make to their classroom and teaching style in order to better accommodate students learning styles. Like the author stated, it is true that teaching/learning styles are changing but explaining what this specific study demonstrated and how it could influence other studies is very important for further method development. For example, if this study was limited to science majors and found they are not as interested in design as they are computer illustrated text, it would be beneficial to conduct more research with other majors to determine if there was a change in preferences.
I believe this post attempted to explain the relevance of this study to our generation of students in the classroom as well as encourage the need for more research; however, without significant information regarding the study’s sample group it is difficult to make any distinct conclusions. I would recommend including more factual information that both the author and the reader can analyze to further understand the true implication of the study. Finally, describing the method in more detail will give readers a better understanding of how the method is related to actually teaching styles. While the title is definitely well-written and explanatory, there is little specific evidence that supports it in the bulk of the post.