Virtual reality environments (VLEs) such as 360° videos have been introduced as educational tools over the last few years. However, the pedagogical value of these media and devices has not been widely investigated, though it is crucial to examine how the characteristics and properties of ICT fulfill pedagogical needs. These potential characteristics can be defined as “educational affordances” (Norman, 1988), and are a reasonable approach to ICT in education, since the technological properties of ICT develop constantly (Bower & Sturman, 2015).

Starting point in this study was that learning a craft is a complex process. According to Tynjälä (2007) learning a craft includes know-how about working gestures, materials and tools (Tynjälä, 2007). This knowledge is procedural and tacit (Bereiter, 2002; Toom, 2012), and becomes visible through actions (e.g. Syrjäläinen, 2003). However, there is a lack of studies examining the pedagogical value of 360° media and HMD use especially what comes to learning a craft.

Moreover, the quality of e-learning is firmly determined by the satisfaction of the students (Soffer and Nachmias, 2018), including emotional experiences (e.g. Juutinen, 2011). Emotions and competences seem to have a great impact on the usability and adoption of ICT – and on learning. Hence, in this study we focus on the potential affordances that HMD and 360° virtual learning environment (VLE) offer in the skill learning process, keeping the elements of learner satisfaction in mind.

According to earlier research, e-learner satisfaction seems to be dependent on learners’ attitudes and emotions toward ICT, self-efficacy, continuous interaction with the instructor and the instructor’s attitude, flexibility and quality of the course and of the technology, perceived ease of use and usefulness of the technology, diversity in assessment and finally, interaction with others (Sun, Tsai, Finger, Chen, & Yeh 2008). In this study, the prior interest lies in emotions and interaction, since they are important elements of successful learning both in traditional (e.g. Järvelä, 2011) and e-learning contexts (Picciano, 2002; Wanstreet, 2006; Sun et al., 2008; So & Brush, 2008; Juutinen, 2011; Soffer & Nachmias, 2018).

The feature that separates virtual reality technologies from other medias is the ability to create immersive virtual environments through interactivity and sensory feedback. The intensity of physical immersion depends on the media and a device, aka a virtual reality system, and user behavior, such as involvement (Wirth, Hartmann, Böcking, Vorderer, Klimmt, Schramm, et al., 2007). Further, the place illusion appears to enhance engagement and thus to direct the viewer’s focus to the learning content (Rupp, Odette, Kozachuk, Michaelis, Smither & McConnell, 2019).

In the craft learning context, visuomotor skills and hand-eye coordination are essential, with diverse roles in the different stages of skill learning. When beginning to learn a new skill, a learner first forms an initial understanding of the objective of learning (Fowler, 2015), and the visual cues are emphasized. Thus observing the skill demonstration is generally beneficial for the learner.

For the research purposes we created an educational material in which we aimed to arouse the experience of immersion by combining HMD and first-person perspective 360° video: the HMD isolates the user’s senses from the physical world and 360° video enables the viewer to change the view in an unbroken circle (c.f. Rupp et al., 2019) as in authentic environment.

The aim of this paper was to examine university students’ perceived satisfaction of first-person perspective HMD 360° video in a handcraft skill learning process and the learning outcomes of a specific craft skill. Concerning satisfaction, we were mainly interested in attitudes, competence and emotional experiences of ICT-use, since they can affect learning and predict the adoption and use of ICT-devices.

In this paper, mixed-method strategies were used to address these pedagogical and emotional needs in the context of craft learning and 360° VLE. Furthermore, a quasi-experimental design was used to compare learning outcomes of 360° VLE and traditional groups. Participants in this study were a group of kindergarten teacher students (n=16) in a Finnish university. They participated in a crafts course as part of their compulsory studies. The aim of the course was to practice basic craft skills and learn how to teach these skills to children. As part of the course, students taught craft skills to the rest of the group, e.g. sawing and metal bending but excluding carving, which was taught by the first author. The students were 21-53 years old and the majority were female (15 out of 16), which is customary in Finnish early education teacher studies. Therefore, it was not reasonable to study the impact of gender in this study. A quasi-experimental design was used, and there were two groups for comparison. For the experiment, we manipulated the learning method to explore its impact on learning outcomes. Hence, the students of the control group attended a traditional crafts class, whereas the experimental group attended a lesson which was given via HMD-360° video. The educational goals of the video were determined as: (1) to understand how to teach carving to kindergarten children safely, (2) to understand some theoretical elements of carving and (3) to learn correct carving techniques. Mixed methods were used to collect data in order to gain a broader understanding of the research questions: quantitative methods are well suited to experimental design, whereas qualitative methods help to gain a deeper understanding of one’s subjective experiences (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018). Thus, the instruments for collecting data included an experimental scenario, pre- and post-test questionnaires, an observation form for the carving competence evaluation and interviews for the experimental group.

Findings based on quantitative analysis suggest that negative or positive ICT-attitude did not affect how students experienced traditional or 360° lessons emotionally. Consequently, a notable finding is that 360° and traditional lessons can be equally usable from the emotional point of view. This finding may thus indicate good emotional usability of the 360° VLE. However, ICT- and craft-competences had significant correlations with the described emotions. Hence, student competences should be taken carefully into account, for example by providing assistance when planning courses that include specific skills, such as crafts and the use of (novel) technology. No significant differences in terms of learning outcomes were observed between the traditional and 360° teaching methods in this study. However, it is important to pay attention to the specific affordances and boundaries of the HMD-360° method, so that the use or rejection of the application is justified in a specific context, in this case skill and craft learning. According to the thematic analysis of the interviews, the 1st-person-view 360° VLE could be used for basic skill observation and visualization to support traditional hands-on learning. Moreover, a head-mounted display was considered to help with focusing on the demonstration. However, more interaction with the interface and opportunities for direct interaction with the instructor were seen as necessary in 360° VLEs for skill learning in the future.

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