VR game developed at UGA helps science students
The unique difficulties faced by multilingual kids in the classroom may have an effect on their academic achievement. Innovative teaching techniques may help close this gap, according to a new University of Georgia research.
English is the primary language of teaching in schools in the United States, where pupils’ progress is assessed via written tests and spoken communication. For bilingual students, this may be problematic, especially in scientific courses where complicated sentence patterns and specialised vocabulary make it more difficult for them to communicate what they comprehend.
To address this, a UGA researcher has developed an immersive virtual reality (VR) game that presents scientific ideas in a novel manner. The game gives students more chances to understand scientific content outside of only verbal explanations.
An English as a New Language teacher and a middle school science teacher from Indiana worked together to establish the project, which was headed by UGA Mary Frances Early College of Education Assistant Professor, Ai-Chu Elisha Ding. They collaborated to create a VR game that supports seventh-grade scientific curriculum while also assisting children in improving their language proficiency.
The game was created in two versions: one for desktop computers and one for virtual reality headsets. The VR headset version allowed students to interact with their virtual environment by emphasising visual and aural signals to offer feedback. The PC version, however, was less immersive and concentrated more on text-based content.
Following their use of the game, students took a test covering the scientific content. Multilingual pupils performed on par with their classmates who spoke English as their first language, and all students, even those who were learning the language, had better test results. Interestingly, the benefits were much greater for individuals who played the immersive VR version than for those who played the PC version.
The results demonstrate the advantages of providing extra assistance and other ways for multilingual students to communicate their ideas outside of the conventional classroom settings.
Even if virtual reality technology isn’t available in every classroom, Ding stressed that educators may still experiment with different teaching strategies. In order to aid pupils in processing information, she emphasised the need of using nonverbal communication strategies like gestures and pictures.
Doctoral student Eunkyoung Elaine Cha of UGA’s Department of Workforce Education and Instructional Technology co-authored this work, which was published in *Learning and Instruction*. Through the Creative Teaching Grant, Ball State University provided funding for the study.
