Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) has become an innovative tool in education, allowing learners to engage with complex content in an interactive and dynamic way. iVR integrates multiple sensory inputs like visual, auditory, and spatial, offering a more engaging experience. However, many learners struggle to effectively synthesize and retain this diverse information, leading to cognitive overload and reduced learning efficiency. To address this issue, imagination training has been proposed as a cognitive strategy to aid in the mental visualization and organization of new knowledge. Pflieger, Hartmann and Bannert (2024) investigated in their study whether pre-training imagination techniques can improve learners’ ability to process and retain semantic and spatial information in an iVR learning environment.
What are the hypothesis of the authors?
- Imagination pre-training will enhance semantic knowledge acquisition (allowing learners to better integrate auditory and visual information).
- Imagination pre-training will enhance spatial knowledge acquisition, enabling learners to develop more accurate mental maps of the iVR environment.
Methodology
The study used the “IL DIVINO: Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling in VR” app to provide an immersive learning experience about the Sistine Chapel. The experimental group of university students (30 students) received a pre-training in imagination strategies before the iVR session, while the control group (30 students) had no training. The pre-training included three imagination techniques:
- Structural Anchoring – Associating knowledge with physical structures in the environment.
- Chronological Integration – Linking historical information to spatial elements.
- Symbolic Association – Connecting abstract concepts with visual imagery.
All participants explored the iVR environment while listening to an audio guide, followed by post-tests assessing semantic and spatial knowledge acquisition and their subjective mental model.
Results
The pre-training group did not significantly outperform the control group in semantic or spatial knowledge acquisition, meaning the hypothesis was not confirmed. However, further analysis revealed key factors influencing learning outcomes:
- Enjoyment and Cognitive Load: Higher enjoyment reduced cognitive strain and improved knowledge retention.
- Auditory Integration: Learners who actively imagined auditory information processed it more effectively.
- Cognitive Overload: High extraneous load negatively impacted spatial knowledge recall, indicating that too much sensory input hinders learning.
- Visual-Spatial Ability: Learners with stronger spatial visualization skills built better mental models and retained more information.
Conclusion
The lack of significant improvement in the pre-training group may be due to several factors: First, the pre-training duration may have been too short for learners to fully internalize the imagination strategy. Also, the complexity of iVR environments may have led to cognitive overload, making it harder to apply pre-trained strategies. Finally, individual differences in spatial ability influenced how well learners benefited from imagination training.
Future Directions in research should extend the pre-training phase to reinforce imagination strategies. To manage cognitive load, adaptive learning approaches should be implemented to explore if they help learners manage cognitive load. Also, future research should include long-term retention effects of imagination training beyond immediate post-tests.
References
- Pflieger, L.C.J., Hartmann, C. & Bannert, M. Enhancing knowledge construction in emerging technologies: the role of imagination training in immersive virtual reality environments. Discov Educ 3, 65 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-024-00154-2
