Effects of virtual reality in the area of responsible decision-making training on adolescents

Abstract

The number of emotional illnesses rises every year. The efforts of using HCI and VR technology to create prevention tools require to extend the design learning knowledge to provide appropriate emotional cognitive experiences. Research has shown that VR provides better engagement and improvement on basic emotional and social dimensions of learning, however, the literature shows that it is necessary for the continuous study to develop effective emotional learning experience addressed to the next generations on immersive virtual learning environment. This study aims to identify how VR experiences impact the learning of a specific emotional dimension on adolescents (responsible decision-making RDM) and identify which cognitive and experience elements have incidence in the design of the learning experience. Based on literature and theories of VR and learning sciences, we experimented using VR on learning sessions with a control group based in ethical and emotional situations using the SODAS method to learn responsible decision making. Results show that the VR group gets a higher score after the sessions, and qualitative and quantitative data reveals that learning timing, cognitive articulation, learning attribution, cognitive load, and specific emotional dimensions might be impacted by the emotional learning experience. The analyses provide helpful information for the future design of cognitive experiences on VR technology.