Connected Learning Summit 2019

Designing in 360 Degrees: Cueing the Player for Immersive Learning
Larysa Nadolny, Kristina M Tank
Previous research on cueing has focused on multimedia environments where the information is within the player’s field of vision. Virtual reality environments have the unique challenge in that information is located in all directions around the player. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of cueing on patterns of engagement within a 360° image. Exploratory data analysis was used to examine 3337 user interactions. Although there was an overall decrease in clicks from front to back in all groups, the text and audio cueing groups more frequently selected items behind the field of view. These findings support the use of cueing as a way to direct the player’s attention to the back of the virtual environment.

Education Through Navigation: Exploring Wayfinding in Mission HydroSci
Alex Urban, Wenyi Lu, Hao He, Joseph Griffin
Popular 3D educational video games increasingly incorporate vast amounts of content and limited direct instruction. This exploratory study investigates player navigation in order to determine how wayfinding aids and level design impact the interaction with embedded instructional content. To investigate player behavior, participants completed navigational tasks within a larger usability study of an environmental science video game, Mission HydroSci. This study adopts a mixed-method approach, including: (a) demographic questionnaires and geographic skills assessment, (b) virtual participant observation, (c) game logs of user actions, and (d) analysis of eye-tracking data related to in-game navigational aids. We found that participant self-reported average weekly gameplay, affect toward science, and spatial orientation as well distance estimation experience positively correlated to player interaction with some wayfinding aids and the speed in which participants completed tasks with and without explicit navigational cues. In addition to these demographic correlations, in-game player movement and visual fixation duration present differences that may be valuable for future behavioral clustering. We use these results to discuss future research implications for 3D virtual learning environments.