Studies examined the potential use of VEs in teaching historical chronology to 127 children of primary school age (8–9 years). The use of passive fly-through VEs had been found, in an earlier study, ...to be disadvantageous with this age group when tested for their subsequent ability to place displayed sequential events in correct chronological order. All VEs in the present studies included active challenge, previously shown to enhance learning in older participants. Primary school children in the UK (all frequent computer users) were tested using UK historical materials, but no significant effect was found between three conditions (Paper, PowerPoint and VE) with minimal pre-training. However, excellent (error free) learning occurred when children were allowed greater exploration prior to training in the VE. In Ukraine, with children having much less computer familiarity, training in a VE (depicting Ukrainian history) produced better learning compared to PowerPoint, but no better than in a Paper condition. The results confirmed the benefit of using challenge in a VE with primary age children, but only with adequate prior familiarisation with the medium. Familiarity may reduce working memory load and increase children’s spatial memory capacity for acquiring sequential temporal-spatial information from virtual displays.
► Primary school children (8–9 years old) can benefit from using VEs in learning historical chronology. ► Challenge has to be incorporated, to create a format like a computer game. ► Children only benefit adequately familiarized with the VE in advance. ► Familiarity may be effective because it reduces working memory load. ► Children’s frequency of computer usage was not a significant factor.
Single linear virtual timelines have been used effectively with undergraduates and primary school children to convey the chronological ordering of historical items, improving on PowerPoint and ...paper/textual displays. In the present study, a virtual environment (VE) consisting of three parallel related timelines (world history and the histories of art and psychology) was used to convey both chronology and the cross-referencing and relatedness among the three domains of material. Undergraduate participants were able to use the VE more effectively than booklets, better remembering the chronological ordering of all materials and successfully cross-referencing from one domain to another. The paradigm arguably invokes the use of high capacity spatial memory, and could potentially be used to convey and remember large amounts of historical-chronological information.
► Placing historical information in a spatial-temporal virtual context enhances recall. ► Parallel virtual time lines allow successful recall of several domains of information. ► Use of a temporal-spatial protocol allows cross-referencing between domains.
Virtual Reality (virtual environment technology, VET) has been widely available for twenty years. In that time, the benefits of using virtual environments (VEs) have become clear in many areas of ...application, including assessment and training, education, rehabilitation and psychological research in spatial cognition. The flexibility, reproducibility and adaptability of VEs are especially important, particularly in the training and testing of navigational and way-finding skills. Transfer of training between real and virtual environments has been found to be reliable. However, input device usage can compromise spatial information acquisition from VEs, and distances in VEs are invariably underestimated. The present review traces the evolution of VET, anticipates future areas in which developments are likely to occur, and highlights areas in which research is needed to optimise usage.
Historical time and chronological sequence are usually conveyed to pupils via the presentation of semantic information on printed worksheets, events being rote-memorised according to date. We ...explored the use of virtual environments in which successive historical events were depicted as "places" in time—space, encountered sequentially in a fly-through. Testing was via "Which came first, X or Y?" questions and picture-ordering. University undergraduates experiencing the history of an imaginary planet performed better after a VE than after viewing a "washing line" of sequential images, or captions alone, especially for items in intermediate list positions. However, secondary children 11–14 years remembered no more about successive events in feudal England when they were presented virtually compared with either paper picture or 2-D computer graphic conditions. Primary children 7–9 years learned more about historical sequence after studying a series of paper images, compared with either VE or computer graphic conditions, remembering more in early/intermediate list positions. Reasons for the discrepant results are discussed and future possible uses of VEs in the teaching of chronology assessed.
Past evidence suggest that people acquire poor understanding of chronology during their education, and studies such as that of Masterman and Rogers (Instructional Science, 30, 2002) have suggested ...that technology might be employed to improve history teaching. The difficulty that children have with the concepts of time and chronology arise probably because of their abstract nature, and teachers indicated in questionnaire responses that they would welcome the availability of effective history teaching paradigms. A pioneering attempt was made to exploit a new paradigm, Virtual Environment (VE) technology that ought to engage high-capacity spatial memory, to improve participants' learning of chronology. Three age groups (undergraduates, middle school, and primary school children) were trained in virtual space to learn sequences of events, visited successively as though travelling in a time machine. Controls saw the same events but as paper text/pictures or as PowerPoint slides. In the initial part of the project one nine-item time line was used. Undergraduates remembered more when tested immediately after training with a VE, especially when challenged to remember each up-coming event. Primary school children in UK, and Ukraine, (with, and without, regular computer experience) also did so, when provided with adequate pre-training with the medium. Only middle school children persistently failed to benefit from VE training, despite the use of a variety of materials and despite repeated training after one month on one occasion. Two and three parallel timelines were employed, depicting music and art history, and the history of psychology, art and general history, respectively. A substantial benefit was seen when undergraduates used a large spatial environment which allowed them to view across three parallel timelines. It was concluded that VEs have potential as a means of imparting better chronological knowledge than other media so long as they are sufficiently challenging. Alternative paradigms need to be developed which improve the longevity of historical learning from VEs.
Past evidence suggest that people acquire poor understanding of chronology during their education, and studies such as that of Masterman and Rogers (Instructional Science, 30, 2002) have suggested ...that technology might be employed to improve history teaching. The difficulty that children have with the concepts of time and chronology arise probably because of their abstract nature, and teachers indicated in questionnaire responses that they would welcome the availability of effective history teaching paradigms. A pioneering attempt was made to exploit a new paradigm, Virtual Environment (VE) technology that ought to engage high-capacity spatial memory, to improve participants' learning of chronology. Three age groups (undergraduates, middle school, and primary school children) were trained in virtual space to learn sequences of events, visited successively as though travelling in a time machine. Controls saw the same events but as paper text/pictures or as PowerPoint slides. In the initial part of the project one nine-item time line was used. Undergraduates remembered more when tested immediately after training with a VE, especially when challenged to remember each up-coming event. Primary school children in UK, and Ukraine, (with, and without, regular computer experience) also did so, when provided with adequate pre-training with the medium. Only middle school children persistently failed to benefit from VE training, despite the use of a variety of materials and despite repeated training after one month on one occasion. Two and three parallel timelines were employed, depicting music and art history, and the history of psychology, art and general history, respectively. A substantial benefit was seen when undergraduates used a large spatial environment which allowed them to view across three parallel timelines. It was concluded that VEs have potential as a means of imparting better chronological knowledge than other media so long as they are sufficiently challenging. Alternative paradigms need to be developed which improve the longevity of historical learning from VEs.
In earlier studies investigating the learning of historical chronology, virtual fly-throughs were used in which successive historical events were represented by images on virtual screens, placed in ...temporal-spatial sequence. Undergraduate students benefited more than school-age children from virtual 3D (compared to 2D) training, perhaps because they took on the task as a challenge. In this study a modification of the earlier paradigm was used, in a game-like format, in which successive screens (paintings, representing epochs of art history) had to be memorised and anticipated during training, the participant’s score accumulating on the screen. Compared with PowerPoint and verbal-semantic training conditions, VE training resulted in more rapid learning, better recall of associated semantic information and error-free recall of the picture sequence. Possible applications of this paradigm for teaching were discussed.
