Keynote

Learning in Immersive Virtual Reality: An Evidence-Based Approach

Keynote 2 | Dienstag, 24.09.2024 | 17:00 – 18:00 Uhr

Prof. Dr. Richard E. Mayer | University of California, Santa Barbara (USA)

Zum Zoom-Raum

Can immersive virtual reality (IVR) serve as an effective venue for academic learning? The promise of learning in IVR lies in its affordances for motivating learners to engage in generative processing (i.e., cognitive processing aimed at making sense of the material). The pitfall of learning in IVR is that it can distract learners so they engage in extraneous processing (i.e., cognitive processing that does not support the instructional goal).

This talk reviews (1) media comparison research we have conducted on the effectiveness of learning academic content and skills in IVR versus learning with conventional media and (2) value-added research we have conducted concerning which features can improve the instructional effectiveness of learning in IVR. The talk examines implications for instructional theory, educational practice, and for further work in the area. Overall, the challenge of designing effective instruction in IVR is to determine how to reduce the distracting aspects of IVR, maintain the motivating aspects of IVR, and guide the learner towards the core instructional material.

Richard E. Mayer is Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  His research interests involve applying the science of learning to education.  He served as President of Division 15 (Educational Psychology) of the American Psychological Association and Vice President of the American Educational Research Association for Division C (Learning and Instruction).  He has received the E. L. Thorndike Award for career achievement in educational psychology, the Scribner Award for outstanding research in learning and instruction, the Jonassen Award for excellence in research in the field of instructional design and technology, the James McKeen Cattell Award for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to applied psychological research, the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Contribution of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training Award, and the Citizen Psychologist Citation for four decades of service as a local school board member.  He has been recognized in Contemporary Educational Psychology as the most productive educational psychologist in the world and by research.com as among the top 100 research psychologists in the world.  He serves on the editorial boards of 12 journals mainly in educational psychology.  He is the author or co-author of more than 600 publications including 35 books, such as Multimedia Learning: Third Edition, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Fifth Edition (with R. Clark), Learning as a Generative Activity (with L. Fiorella), and The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning: Third Edition (co-edited with L. Fiorella).