Supporting Academic Engagement through Immersive Technologies

Abstract

Academic engagement refers to the overall quality of students’ involvement with schooling, including their activities and goals, as well as their connections with peers and educators. Much research has examined the facilitation and support of students’ academic engagement within physical classroom settings. However, the field of education has been experiencing a shift from the status quo modus operandi of face-to-face instruction to online synchronous/asynchronous instruction, which has impacted students’ engagement. This change has increased the demand to develop and adapt digital technologies that can support the engagement of students throughout online learning processes and their adjustment to the new educational norm. Fundamental research on the development and implementation of immersive technologies could provide a way forward, however we maintain that the development of such technologies needs to be guided by current pedagogical and psychological theories. Hence, in this paper, first we examine empirically substantiated frameworks of engagement and identify aspects that require consideration when developing new immersive technologies. Then, we present a succinct review of the technology-enhanced learning environments literature to determine how engagement has (or has not) been supported through immersive technologies, i.e., virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 3D volumetric video. Finally, having embarked on the development of our in-house technology, an immersive 3D video prototype, we present the technology setup alongside the co-creation process that we are implementing to guide its development. Based on pedagogical and psychological research, we highlight several vital factors substantiating students’ engagement, including the significance of the teacher’s role and the importance of teacher-student and student-student interactions. These factors serve to guide our qualitative data collection during co-creation sessions to uncover students’ and teachers’ new perspectives of engagement in relation to the affordances that immersive technologies should offer. Our work presents insights to educators, technology designers and researchers about important educational frameworks and considerations directing our development of immersive technologies in support of academic engagement.