Evaluating Navigation Paths and Improving Performance in Educational Virtual Worlds

Abstract

Virtual worlds are used more frequently for educational purposes. To make sure that these educational virtual worlds are being used in the most optimal way, it is important to know how well its users are doing and how engaged they are with the virtual world. This thesis explores the link between navigation paths and engagement and performance in an educational virtual world. Our research attempts to find a way of gauging both engagement levels and educational performance through navigational patterns. This link is found by letting users interact with a virtual world and then testing how much of the world has been remembered. The users’ navigational patterns are used to provide hints to steer users through a virtual world in way that improves their performance. No links were found between engagement and navigation paths, but a link was found between improving navigational behaviour and performance. This thesis also provides avenues for further research to improve virtual worlds in learning contexts.