Op aardrijkskundig veldwerk met Virtual Reality: een ontwerponderzoek naar de kenmerken van een goed Virtual reality veldwerk.

Abstract

Fieldwork is a part of geography education. It’s an educational tool for connecting theory and practice. Doing fieldwork knows a few constraints including lack of time, financial support or transport possibilities. A relatively new alternative for doing fieldwork outside is virtual fieldwork. Students stay in the classroom and take a look at the outside world with a device. In this research, the focus is on virtual fieldwork with Virtual Reality. The use of this new educational application has practical and didactical challenges, which will be studied with the following question: “What are the characteristics of a consistent, relevant, operable and effective design for virtual fieldwork using Virtual Reality?”. The aim of this research is to generate knowledge about virtual fieldwork with Virtual Reality in geography education. Additionally, the aim is to create an effective design for virtual fieldwork that can be used in geography class.

To formulate an answer to the main question, this research is divided in two parts: a literature research and a design research. The results of the literature research are the basis for the design research. The design research is based on de Educational Design Research method. In this method, an educational design is formulated based on the results of the literature research. This design is proposed to geography experts, teachers and students. On the basis of iterative cycles, the educational design is extended and improved.

Based on the literature research and the design research, 24 design principles are formulated. All together, these 24 principles answer the main question. Design principles can be seen as requirements for a consistent, relevant, operable and effective design for virtual fieldwork with Virtual Reality. To broaden the operability of virtual fieldwork with Virtual Reality, further research can focus on the effect of virtual fieldwork on the learning effects. Besides further research can be done on the effectivity of virtual fieldwork with students from different age groups, or on the effectivity of virtual fieldwork with other school subjects than geography.