Situating Authenticity in Student Reflections of Educational Virtual Reality (Poster 45)

• In Event: Saturday Poster Session 1:15 pm
  In Poster Session: Advanced Technologies for Learning SIG Poster Session

Abstract

This study investigates how situated understandings of authenticity can shape student sense-making in educational virtual reality applications. Drawing on inductive qualitative analysis and situated theories of learning, I particularly attend to the ways authenticity becomes meaningful through its enactment and relationality. To meet these objectives, I pursued the following research question: How are notions of authenticity implicated in students’ reflections of learning in virtual reality? Findings from this study show that students draw on different sensorial and perspectival experiences to understand authenticity in VR, and use their sensorial and emotional experiences to consider how authenticity is helpful to their learning. Such findings recast authenticity in VR design as a situated phenomenon whose value and meaning is contextually mediated.

Author

• Jacob Fortman, Michigan State University