Abstract:

This paper investigates the effect of environment design and live discussion feedback in a creative process of higher education students in a collaborative virtual environment.
Previous research indicates that collaborative problem-based learning is an essential teaching method in higher education, as students are actively involved, learn more efficiently and get prepared for the high demand for teamwork competencies in work environments. However, imbalances in participation and motivation in group settings can lead to increased workload, mental overload, and frustration for those who have to compensate for freeloaders. Transferring group work to conventional remote settings poses additional challenges such as low feelings of presence, a lack of visual (social) cues and spatial awareness of other participants, all of which can lead to even lower motivation.
A growing body of research suggests that Social Virtual Reality (Social VR) can evoke a high sense of social and spatial presence. Hence, Social VR might be well suited to host collaborative creative processes (or other forms of group work). Aside from these innate qualities of Social VR, in general Virtual Reality allows the modification of various aspects of the virtual environments to influence the users’ experience in beneficial ways.
We developed a Social VR application that provides tools for brainstorming positive and negative aspects of a freely chosen topic. The focus of the conducted study was twofold: First, we evaluated the supportiveness of two different environments to gather positive and negative aspects. Second, we investigated the effect of the measured and displayed user engagement throughout the whole discussion, assuming to see a more equal balance of participation among users.
A first evaluation was conducted with 15 people divided into groups of four to six students each. Most of the subjects reported that they adjusted their participation in the conversation and encouraged others to engage more in the discussion. The virtual environment was rated as moderately to very supportive of the creative process, with the highest ratings for the virtual landscape and the provided tools. However, the perception of the environment varied strongly depending on the students’ backgrounds: while computer science students felt comfortable and described the environment as interesting but not too distracting, design students were bored and felt uncomfortable in the room with the negative focus design. Despite these findings indicating that the environment's design impacted the subjects’ mood, a correlation with the outcome of the creative process to collect positive and negative aspects itself requires further investigation.

Keywords:

Virtual reality, group work, collaborative virtual environment, environment design, brainstorming.