An Educator’s Perspective of how an Immersive Learning Environment is is used for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

The use of immersive environments has increased in popularity within education and training establishments around the world and is increasingly being regarded as a viable means to support learning [1]. The number of Further Education and Higher Education Institutes within the United Kingdom who have invested in this new technology has increased significantly. Since the University of Sunderland, invested in an immersive environment just 2 years ago there has been growth from single figures into the hundreds [2].

From using the immersive environment, as well as through initial discussions, it has been noted that there could be a lack of support in educational institutes to support the development and use of suitable and effective resources and therefore more research is needed to look into this further.

This study investigates users’ views on the use of this technology for teaching, learning and assessment through semi-structured interviews. The users were asked 14 questions as part of the interview around their background and the immersive spaces they use. There are a number of questions around the barriers as well as the benefits to using an immersive environment. There were also questions around what work they were doing in the space in terms of teaching and learning content creation, if the environment is used for assessments as well as how they would like their immersive space to be used in the future.

Results show that immersive spaces can positively benefit students and academics from a variety of disciplines including creative arts, health and STEM subjects. Feedback from students is mostly positive, with third-year and master's students particularly enjoying the space, however, first-year students tend to be more reserved. From the results we have also found that the immersive space is currently not widely used for formal assessments but is helpful for mock tests and peer evaluations as well as discussing assessment feedback to support student development.

It is shown that immersive spaces can significantly enhanced learning by promoting collaboration, interactivity, and engagement. Whilst challenges such as content creation and initial usage uptake persist, these are significantly outweighed by the advantages of such spaces.

The paper focuses on the perceptions of immersive environments from people who use them in their teaching and student engagement, in turn leading to further research on best practice of such spaces.