3D desktop virtual reality as a facilitator of the learning quality and of strengthening students’ results

ABSTRACT

Applications of Virtual Reality in education are becoming more and more frequent. A desktop-based 3D virtual reality environment has been piloted at our university. The aim was to analyse the impact of VRE implementation on results of students. Two educational experiments were conducted in order to evaluate its effect on students’ outcomes in the university courses of Finance (N = 177; age 20–24) and Marketing (N = 157; age 20–24). In the case of Finance, a positive impact was demonstrated, while in Marketing, the resulting picture was inconsistent. After disclosing this disproportion, the authors discuss which factors could lead to the differences and what and how could be changed in order to increase the impact of virtual reality on students’ results.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtual reality
• 3D
• MUVE
• education
• marketing course
• finance course

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, grant number TL05000459 “Improving the quality of learning and strengthening students’ motivation to learn by deploying a 3D virtual university campus based on virtual and augmented reality technologies in the teaching process”.

Notes on contributors

J. Hvorecký

During more than 50 years of his career, J. Hvorecký was teaching at 18 universities in 12 countries courses in the fields belonging to Information Science, Computer Education, Management Information Systems, and Organizational Behaviour. His research addresses Introductory programming courses, E-learning, University Management, Computers in Mathematics Education and others. Most recently, he has become interested in E-working and its influences to management of companies and institutions. Currently, he acts as a professor at the Faculty of Pedagogy of the University of Ostrava, Czech Republic.

P. Rozehnal

P. Rozehnal is an assistant professor at VSB Technical University of Ostrava, Faculty of Economics. He has a PhD (2007) from VSB Technical University of Ostrava in study program Managerial Informatics. He is author and co-author of several papers or articles in specialized journals or conference proceedings. His research interest focuses on IT/Business alignment, IT governance/management and application of new trends and technologies into practice.

T. Funioková

T. Funioková is an assistant professor at VSB TUO Ostrava since 2004, currently at the Department of Mathematical Methods in Economics. In 2006 she received her Ph.D. in Algebra and Geometry at Palacký University in Olomouc. Her research interests include the application of statistics, building simulations, data mining, and machine learning.

P. Gurný

P. Gurný is a Deputy Head of the Department of Finance at the VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, where he received his PhD degree in Finance. He also leads the Managing of Finance module within the MBA programme. His research focuses especially on assets valuation in a stochastic and fuzzy environment, financial modelling and risk management. He is the author or co-author of dozens of papers in international journals/conference proceedings in finance and financial modelling and a team leader/member in several research projects.