{"id":6910,"date":"2023-01-08T08:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-01-08T13:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=6910"},"modified":"2023-04-07T15:55:51","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T20:55:51","slug":"my-detective-adventure-vr-will-transform-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/my-detective-adventure-vr-will-transform-education\/","title":{"rendered":"My Detective Adventure: “VR Will Transform Education”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend recently sent me a link to an article with a click-baity headline: something like “Virtual Reality Will Change Education Forever.”<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/a><\/p>\n

Her pithy comment: “This is obviously nonsense.” (It’s possible she used a spicier word that ‘nonsense.’)<\/p>\n

On the one hand<\/em>, I’m skeptical that ANYTHING will change education forever. Heck, if Covid didn’t transform education, who knows what will.<\/p>\n

More specifically, ed-tech claims about “transforming education” have been around for a long time. Their track record doesn’t dazzle. (Smart boards, anyone?)<\/p>\n

On the other hand<\/em>, I always like to find reserch that challenges my long-held beliefs. After all, if I can’t learn from people who disagree with me, who can I learn from?<\/p>\n

So, I followed my usual process.<\/p>\n

In essence, I switched into Detective Mode, and started asking lots of questions.<\/p>\n

If I ask the right questions, I thought, I’ll get a much clearer picture of potential educational benefits of VR.<\/p>\n

Act I: The Investigation Begins<\/h2>\n

When I reviewed the article my friend sent, I noticed a troubling gap: the article didn’t link to underlying research<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As I’ve written in the past<\/a>, this absence creates a red flag. If the article champions “research-based innovation,” why not link to the research?<\/p>\n

So, I asked my first detective question. I emailed the author of the article and asked to see the research<\/em>.<\/p>\n

How simple is that?<\/p>\n

Obviously, any resistance to this request — “sorry, we can’t share that at this moment” — would underline my friend’s skeptical verdict: “nonsense.”<\/p>\n

However, the author responded immediately with a link to a research summary<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A promising development…<\/p>\n

The Plot Thickens<\/h2>\n

This research summary<\/a> showed real promise.<\/p>\n

In brief:<\/p>\n

Some college students in an introductory Biology course followed the typical path<\/strong> — readings, lectures, labs. (That’s the “control group.”)<\/p>\n

Other students in the same course followed an alternative path<\/strong>: readings, lectures, supplementary Virtual Reality experience, alternative labs based on the VR experience<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When researchers looked at all sorts of results, they found that students on the alternative VR path did better.<\/p>\n

That is: not only did the students enjoy the VR experiences; not only did they engage more with the material; they (on average) learned more<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However — and this is a BIG however — this research didn’t look like it was published.<\/p>\n

In fact, when I asked that direct question, the article author confirmed that the research hadn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, the topic of\u00a0peer review<\/strong> creates LOTS of controversy. The peer-review system has MANY troubling flaws.<\/p>\n

However, that system probably reduces the amount of deceptive nonsense that gets published.<\/p>\n

I almost never blog about research that hasn’t been peer reviewed, and so I thought my detecting was at its logical end. The VR claim might not be ‘nonsense,’ but it didn’t yet have enough published evidence to strengthen it.<\/p>\n

And then, an AMAZING thing happened: the lead researcher emailed me to say she would be happy to talk with me about the study<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Over the years, I have occasionally reached out to researchers to be sure I understand their arguments.<\/p>\n

But no researcher has EVER straight-up volunteered for such a meeting. And I mean: EVER.<\/p>\n

The Payoff<\/h2>\n

Honestly, I’d love to transcribe my conversation with Dr. Annie Hale and Lisa Fletcher (“Chief of Realm 4”) — both at Arizona State University because it was both fascinating and inspiring<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Because you’re busy,\u00a0I will instead boil it into three key points:<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Hale and Fletcher have done — and continue to do — incredibly scrupulous research.<\/p>\n

For instance, in the description above, I put the words “control group” in quotations marks.<\/p>\n

I did so because of Hale and Fletcher’s insistance. The two groups of Biology students had somewhat similar<\/em> academic experiences.<\/p>\n

But the research paradigm required enough differences to make the words “control group” technically inappropriate.<\/p>\n

Hale and Fletcher insisted on this precision throughout our discussion. For instance, they regularly pointed out that a particular calculation suggested a positive result, but didn’t reache statistical significance.<\/p>\n

In other words, they highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses of their own argument.<\/p>\n

This habit, it my view, makes them MUCH more reliable guides in this field.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Here’s a shocker: Hale and Fletcher\u00a0do not claim that virtual reality will transform education<\/em>.<\/p>\n

No, really, they don’t.<\/p>\n

The headline of the article<\/em> my friend sent me made that claim, but the researchers themselves<\/em> don’t.<\/p>\n

Instead, they make a very different claim. The alternative Biology path<\/em> included at least three big changes from the typical path<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Change #1<\/strong>: students had the VR experience (and their lab was based on that experience)<\/p>\n

Change #2:<\/strong> the key underlying biology concepts<\/em> had been translated into stories<\/em>. For instance, this “narratively-driven virtual reality” includes an imaginary species called the Astelar. (Some of the students got QUITE protective of these imaginary creatures.)<\/p>\n

Change #3:<\/strong> the TAs in these alternative path<\/em> classes got special training, inspired by Doug Lemov’s\u00a0Teach Like a Champion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We can’t know — and, Hale and Fletcher\u00a0don’t say they know<\/em> — which of these three parts made the biggest difference.<\/p>\n

We can tentatively suspect that these three elements working together<\/em> produced all those learning benefits. And, Hale and Fletcher are planning lots of further research to confirm this tentative belief.<\/p>\n

But, they’re not trying to get VR goggles on every forehead.<\/p>\n

Key Point #3<\/h2>\n

Here’s one of my mantras:<\/p>\n

\n

Researchers isolate<\/em> <\/strong>variables. Teachers combine<\/em> <\/strong>variables.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words: research — as much as possible — looks at the effect of just one thing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

For instance: “mid-lecture aerobic movement improves learning in college<\/em> students.”<\/p>\n

However, teachers juggle hundreds of variables<\/strong> at every second. All those isolated variables studied by researchers might not provide me with useful guidance.<\/p>\n

For instance: if I teach in a business school<\/em>, my formally-dressed students might not appreciate my insistance that they do jumping jacks in the middle of the lecture hall.<\/p>\n

My particular combination of variables doesn’t helpfully align with that isolated exercise variable.<\/p>\n

Here’s my point: Hale and Fletcher seem to be changing the research half of this paradigm.<\/p>\n

In their research, notice that they\u00a0aren’t isolating variables<\/em>. They are, instead, looking at combinations of variables<\/em>.<\/p>\n

VR + stories + Lemov training –> more learning<\/p>\n

In fact, if I understand their argument right, they don’t really think that isolating variables can produce the most useful results — at least not in education research.<\/p>\n

After all (and here I’m adding my own perspective), if\u00a0teachers<\/em> combine variables, shouldn’t\u00a0research<\/em> also look at combinations?<\/p>\n

An Early Verdict<\/h2>\n

I set out on this detective adventure feeling quite skeptical. Both the initial claim (“transform education!”) and the absence of links made me all-but-certain that the strong claim would implode. (Example here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

However, by persistently asking reasonable detective questions, I’ve arrived at a very different place:<\/p>\n

VR + [concepts as stories] + [Lemov-inspired TA training] just might produce big learning gains<\/em>, at least for some students.<\/p>\n

And — crucially — a thoughtful, precise, imaginative, and cautious group of scholars is exploring this possibility in detail.<\/p>\n

As I said back at the beginning, I’ve always got something to learn.<\/p>\n

\n

This post was edited on April 7, 2023 to correct Lisa Fletcher’s title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend recently sent me a link to an article with a click-baity headline: something like “Virtual Reality Will Change Education Forever.” Her pithy comment: “This is obviously nonsense.” (It’s possible she used a spicier word that ‘nonsense.’) On the one hand, I’m skeptical that ANYTHING will change education forever. Heck, if Covid didn’t transform […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29,201],"class_list":["post-6910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-technology","tag-virtual-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6910"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7051,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910\/revisions\/7051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}