Social aspects of teaching with XR: the intersection of the virtual and physical classrooms

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the significance of the virtual classroom as a tool for learning steeped in social experience. Social interactions play a vital role in the classroom. For instance, courses that create a sense of belonging reduce attrition rates and promote academic persistence (Berger & Milem, 1999; Maestas et al., 2007). Active learning, peer interactions and student–faculty interactions contribute significantly to students’ positive social and personal learning experiences (Hurtado et al., 2021; Strayhorn, 2008), particularly for historically underrepresented students (Ribera et al., 2017). However, traditional remote learning alone, such as asynchronous online instruction, has limitations. in meeting students’ needs. For instance, students may struggle to build a sense of community in classrooms due to infrequent online interactions or the absence of peer-to-peer engagement and real-time discussions. In such cases, the use of virtual experiences with XR technology can help facilitate social interactions with teachers and classmates that would typically occur in a traditional, face-to-face pedagogical space (Raja & Lakshmi Priya, 2022; Won et al., 2020).

Teachers’ familiarity with leveraging virtual environments is crucial for effectively integrating novel technology into the classroom (Hayes, 2022). While XR technology, like virtual and augmented reality, has imperfections as a communication tool in classrooms, teachers can leverage these imperfections to enhance the teaching of communication topics more broadly. This essay focuses on three challenges of teaching in XR that can also have pedagogical value to stimulate fruitful discussions in communication classrooms. We use virtual reality (VR) as an example technology to illustrate the benefits and challenges of using XR technology in the classroom. For instance, the challenges of representation, accessibility, and data privacy in VR are highly relevant to a variety of XR technologies, and important areas of study for communication and instruction scholars interested in online and virtual pedagogy. First, we discuss representation and identity in VR, recognizing the shortcomings of currently available avatars, and discuss how to encourage self-presentation via avatars that enhances student confidence. Second, we describe opportunities for virtual classrooms using VR to address accessibility problems, including current inaccessible aspects of the technology. Third, we discuss data privacy and ethics, using as an example of how students’ and teachers’ personal information is tracked, and how this can be a tool for reflecting on privacy issues more generally.

Representation—promoting thoughtful self-presentation via avatars

Virtual worlds have historically served as platforms to exploring identity (Freeman & Maloney, 2021), and in a virtual classroom using VR, students’ can selectively self-present using avatars. Students can optimize their appearance and hide their physical environment and even physical behavior by using their avatar as their visual representation in social settings (Khojasteh & Won, 2021). By selectively self-presenting via avatars, students can also manage the disclosure of different aspects of their identity, such as disability (Zhang et al., 2022). For example, during class video conferencing with a camera constantly on them, students experienced psychological fatigue from continually monitoring their physical appearance, behavior, and personal environment (Ratan et al. 2022a).

Currently, avatar representation is imperfect and varies from consumer platform to consumer platform. Many platforms have limited options, including a lack of older avatars, avatars that begin with a gender binary, and Eurocentric templates (Pandita, 2020; Kafai et al., 2010). Platforms that do not allow for adequate self-representation can harm participants’ experiences in virtual environments, including decreasing participants’ willingness to express aspects of their identity (Lee, 2014; Lee & Park, 2011). Instructors should consider how such limitations can affect the classroom experience. Although instructors will want to assess avatar options, the likelihood that they will still be imperfect offers an opportunity to discuss how representation in virtual worlds reflects—or does not reflect—the actual teachers and students in the physical classroom. Instructors should also set guidelines for student use of avatars, for example, the need to preserve anonymity when visiting public virtual spaces as part of class activities (e.g., not using their full name as their avatar’s name). However, while protecting personal identities should be discussed in the context of public spaces, students should still be encouraged to maintain a connection between their avatar and their classroom identity to support social interactions with their classmates and teacher to maximize learning. For example, recent research suggests that representing the actual self via an avatar (rather than the ideal or future self) is most advantageous for learning in a classroom setting (Ratan et al., 2022b).

Accessibility in XR

Virtual environments hold promise for adding accessibility to the classroom, especially for students who cannot regularly attend the physical classroom for reasons of health or for those who can benefit from the additional social cues that XR can provide, or from the ability to filter their own behaviors. To do so, educators, especially teachers of communication, should focus on how virtual classrooms can filter and enhance social interactions (Hayes, 2022). For example, teachers can utilize virtual environments that allow students to express themselves and interact with others through a variety of ways, such as through text, voice, or the use of desktop navigation. A transformed social interaction can provide additional cues to social interaction that might help neurodiverse students that find social situations challenging to navigate. In the future, socially assistive augmented or mixed reality experiences may also become a part of the physical classroom.

However, most current XR experiences assume that users will have full vision, hearing, and mobility (Jain et al., 2021; Mott et al., 2020; Zhao et al., 2019). This assumption creates the possibility of inaccessible content because it requires students to hear, see, and move in specific ways. For example, for the blind or visually impaired, navigating through a 3D virtual space often proves extremely challenging (Davis & Stanovsek, 2021), while in their daily lives they have additional tools and resources, such as canes and sidewalks, to move around their community. Some recent work, including those cited above, has examined transformations to make virtual content more accessible; but many aspects of the virtual experience, such as having a variety of nonverbal social cues, remain difficult to implement at scale. Virtual environments may be less accessible to students because of physical discomfort. For instance, poorly designed or overused XVR experiences that contain perceptual mismatches can cause cybersickness or simulator sickness, with side effects such as dizziness, eye strain, nausea, and headaches. Although temporary, negative physical effects disrupt learning and potentially motivation to learn challenging content. In addition to physical discomfort, VR headsets offer new challenges when used remotely, even when they are provided with the hardware. Open virtual worlds that allow instructors and students to interact and move freely often utilize internet browsers or apps directly connected to the web. As a result, educational VR experiences may require high and reliable internet speeds, and those lacking this support will be unable to engage with classroom activity. Students from rural communities often lack consistent access to high-speed internet for instance (Lai & Widmar, 2021), creating a digital divide for an entire community. In addition, the benefit of VR hardware to allow for full body movements, may be a challenge for some students that lack sufficient space, or sufficient privacy to comfortably engage in a virtual environment. Finally, students may lack skills and experience to utilize technology in general, let alone emerging technology (Aissaoui, 2021).

Discussing the challenges of accessibility is particularly relevant in communication classrooms, and each student can bring examples of how different virtual experiences do or do not work for them based on their personal experience. Thus, the flaws of each system can also be discussion points. However, to make sure that everyone can get at least partial access to these experiences, teachers will need to arrange accommodations. For example, teachers may choose to serve as a guide by sharing their own view of the virtual world during class time as an example. In this way, students can “ride along” on Zoom while the teacher provides a narration of what is occurring in the virtual environment. Furthermore, teachers and students can utilize virtual environments that work both with a VR headset and on a computer desktop.

Privacy—the ethics of tracking student behavior in virtual space

XR relies on tracking participants’ behavior in the physical world and using that information to display interactive digital content. The ability to track and record nonverbal behavior allows students to communicate a multitude of information, such as attention to a speaker, emotion, or agreement. The tracking inherent to XR can also be a tool for teachers and students to self-reflect on their behavior—in both virtual and physical classrooms. Because such classroom experiences allow ready recording of nonverbal behavior (Wang et al., 2020), teachers can record their own behavior and then re-examine it in a more three-dimensional way than video-taping a classroom will allow. They can then reflect on their own nonverbal behaviors and how they relate to students. For example, teachers can visualize students’ gaze in virtual classrooms (Rahman et al., 2020) to gage attention, or use visualization techniques to judge their own eye contact in a classroom setting (Bailenson et al., 2008).

However, tracking students’ nonverbal behavior comes with privacy risks, such as identifying unknown health conditions (Bailenson, 2018). Given the diversity of privacy protections across consumer systems, privacy issues will always need to be considered in the context of a virtual classroom. Countries with laws that protect students’ rights to privacy of their student records will need to address the use of VR in the classroom. For example, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA; 2021) in the United States protects post-high school students’ rights on when and how information in the education record is released. Teachers can provide anonymous user accounts and should also warn students not to link their personal social media accounts. However, because the connection between physical behavior and virtual behavior is observable, this offers the opportunity to discuss issues of privacy in a classroom context, focusing on what social behavior (gaze, proximity, etc.) can reveal about individual students.

Teachers should also keep in mind that the differences between teaching in virtual environments and teaching in physical classrooms are still being explored. For example, students using VR headsets for long periods of time, such as with long lectures, can increase the likelihood of eye strain and other symptoms of cybersickness. In addition, teachers may need to do extra work to maintain student attention and establish classroom norms in highly engaging virtual environments that draw students’ focus to novel and interactive experiences such as during a class field trip to the solar system. Furthermore, students may experience some issues transitioning out from a virtual world (Harris et al., 2019; Harris et al., 2020; Wright, 2014). For instance, a study by Harris et al. (2020) found that for students, accuracy temporarily becomes disrupted when moving from a VR training task to the specific physical world task that required hand–eye coordination. However, the study also showed that VR training overall provided benefits to novices learning physical tasks. The results of this specific study illustrate challenges for transitioning skills learned in VR back to the physical world, pointing to the need to accompany virtual learning with physical-world experiences to ensure that gains are transferable. On the other hand, the potential for students to complete group tasks is enhanced, as they can explore virtual worlds together, and tracking information in most systems will allow teachers to instantly find and help student groups if they have previously friended each other in the environment. Thus, teachers should reflect on not only what but how they are teaching in virtual spaces. VR technology tracks both student and teacher behavior and that data can be utilized to improve learning interventions. However, teachers should be cautious about systems that predict student learning (Moore et al., 2020). For example, computational models have used students’ facial expressions to categorize them as high or low performers (Jabon et al., 2011). While the systems with predictive modeling like those described above are currently used as a proof of concept for specific tasks, such systems, if used inappropriately, could create systemic inequality by labeling students “low performers” and setting their future academic trajectory. For instance, diversity exists in the cultural meaning of various facial expressions (Gendron et al., 2018), and algorithms created with a focus on one community may misrepresent the intentions of students from a differing culture.

Next, successfully completing class activities often reflects students’ cultural backgrounds and the type of skills that are emphasized and valued in their own communities. A study by Ruvalcaba and Rogoff (2022) with elementary-school children showed that Mexican-American students spent twice as much time collaborating through joint action and attention with their partner during a computer programming activity as European-American students completing the same task. In contrast, European-American students’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors emphasized resisting, negotiating, and bossing around their partner. As illustrated in this study, students with different backgrounds can utilize different strategies to successfully complete tasks, but the behaviors that they choose reflect different types of meaning, such as developing collaboration versus argumentation skills. In addition, the study illustrates that social-cultural approaches to learning start early on in life.

Finally, the ability to learn specific skills and content can vary across time and by circumstance. For example, a student that sleeps significantly less the night before may make mistakes one day and then perform well the next, since sleep disruptions can impair people’s mood as well as their cognitive functioning (Vanek et al., 2020). Thus, any assessment that uses tracked behavior needs to be holistic and not overvalue a single time-point. Overall, teachers need to cautiously select methods to assess student learning, and consider what information is being used to power these technological systems. There needs to be transparency about the data being collected and how the data are being used in a form that is easily understood and applicable to teachers.

Conclusion

Some proponents of a “metaverse” contend that future versions of immersive virtual worlds can—and even should—replace many experiences that currently are experienced physically to create an enriched and convenient digital version of reality. The current state of technology does not allow for the same level of rich sensory detail and interactivity that the physical world provides. However, even if it did, living life predominantly in virtual spaces leads to ethical, moral, and public health issues for society. Using virtual environments as a substitute for the physical environment could lead students to disconnect from their peers, instructors, the natural world, and potentially their own bodies and sense of self. If virtual experiences become an end goal, additional social-economic hierarchies could develop in which a select few live in digital paradise, while others work to create and maintain the necessary infrastructure. The recent increased interest in using AI tools such as ChatGPT parallels these concerns. When considering how new technologies can be used in social settings like classrooms, it is imperative to consider how these technologies can enhance communication between the humans in the classroom, support the individuality of the humans in the classroom, and protect the privacy of the classroom space.

Understanding XR environments as unique experiences rather than digital recreations of conventional teaching allows us to reconsider how XR can enhance student social interaction both virtually and in the physical room. As discussed above, while teaching in XR can certainly be used to promote social interaction when students and teachers cannot be together in the physical classroom, it can also be used to enhance in-classroom experiences of colocated students. XR, and VR, is uniquely qualified to encourage students to reflect thoughtfully on embodied communication both virtually and physically. Leveraging the experience of being embodied in virtual spaces can help reimagine the classroom as a site for revitalizing interest in learning as a social activity. For those invested in the potential of XR, it is important to look past the narrative that XR can replace aspects of the physical world. Instead, as educators, we need to create experiences that enhance our connections to our physical environments, and to the people around us, in addition to those people and places whom only technology can allow us to reach. Considering teaching in XR to augment the physical classroom can help connect students back to the physical world and to their peers and classmates, in ways that can help them reconsider these relationships and appreciate them.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).