Metrics for evaluation of educational experiences: Will virtual reality have impact?

Virtual Reality (VR) is poised to revolutionize education by immersing students in learning experiences in a way no other technology has before. In these early days of educational VR applications, it is critical to establish meaningful metrics to determine the potential benefits- and risks-of exposing elementary school students to interactive media using head mounted displays and hand held controllers. Previous work has determined that today's VR hardware is safe for children, but relatively little work has explored metrics educators could use to determine if the experience promoted learning. Based on established educational theoretical foundations, our work proposes metrics that directly align with 21st Century Learning. We propose combining questionnaires for Presence, Immersive Tendencies, and Flow, along with Rubric assessments for problem solving. The case study for our work is a new VR exhibit on the gold rush we are developing for the Royal British Columbia Museum.