In our final day of the SoTL Advent Calendar, we hear from Jane Guiller from Glasgow Caledonian University, who shares her insights on the use of VR in teaching.
Immersion as more than technology: Towards an embodied pedagogy for engagement by Jane Guiller
My experience with immersion in education began when I put on an Oculus Rift DK2 Virtual Reality headset in 2015 to explore the potential for teaching and learning cyberpsychology. Reflecting on the relationships between immersion and pedagogy a decade on, I am rethinking immersion as a design strategy for engagement rather than a headset. After working on two innovative SoTL projects involving technology-enhanced learning, I now understand immersion as a pedagogical experience where learners become psychologically and socially present in a task through embodiment, narrative and meaningful learning – with or without technology.
By immersive learning design, I mean the creation of engaging and interactive learning experiences through situating learners in a simulated or artificial environment. These experiences are described as memorable, meaningful and emotionally engaging (Chirico & Gaggioli, 2023).
Our first co-created immersive learning experience emerged from an internally funded student-staff partnership project in which we aimed to make online learning more engaging and optimise the blend of asynchronous, synchronous and in-person teaching. Diagnosis Zombie was created to teach a large cohort of introductory psychology students about brain structure and function. Students were invited to attend an online event in the role of research assistant in the Glasgow Reanimation Research (GRR!) Lab, a fictional secret facility lurking under George Square. They viewed a series of short animations featuring experiments with two recently captured zombies (Doug and Eartha) and were tasked with identifying the compromised zombie brain parts. Prior to this, they had undergone “brain training” via asynchronous videos made using 3D brain models. Following this, in-person collaborative group work was conducted as students were tasked with creating “nutritional rehabilitation menus” for each zombie using the previously identified dysfunctional brain components (“cerebellum matcha latte with basal ganglia sprinkles anyone?”).
Bond & Bedenlier (2019) define student engagement as the energy and effort that students employ within their learning community. To explore the elements of this experience that students found engaging and helpful for learning, we conducted an online focus group and mapped the behavioural, cognitive or affective indicators of their experience (Bond et al., 2020) in a “what worked” framework. Learners showed behavioural engagement through responding to the questions and polls and taking their own notes. Students reported this was helped through making them part of the zombie narrative and piqued their curiosity beforehand.
Their attention was captured, and they felt part of the “very interactive” online experience. Students reported affective engagement in that they described the learning opportunity as ‘fun’ and ‘enjoyable’, which made the prospect of learning neuroscience less daunting. In terms of strategies embedded in the experience to facilitate learning, students mentioned elements relating to cognitive engagement in that they “had to apply knowledge in a new way”, “the 3D brain models were very useful” and that the experience made it “easier to remember brain parts and understand what they do” and watching “observing reactions helped understanding”.
The second project used Bodyswaps, an immersive learning platform for soft skills training for VR, mobile and desktop. This platform offers a safe environment to develop and practice essential soft skills through Al-driven, personalised feedback and improvement suggestions. Students were given access to the Bodyswaps platform over a 12-week module in social cyberpsychology and asked to write a reflective report on their experiences of learning about equality, diversity and inclusion-related issues through this platform. Students were able to experience this in virtual reality as six in-headset learners at a time were accommodated through in-person laboratory sessions.
Working with Bodyswaps serves as a reminder that technology can initiate, but not sustain, immersive learning. The headset provides a novel and compelling starting experience, yet students’ most meaningful insights appeared during the conversations and debriefs – naming discomfort, negotiating psychological safety (Edmonson, 1999) and connecting the scenarios to their developing soft skills. Several students described the experience as unsettling, not just through the avatars and the Uncanny Valley effect (Mori, 1970), but as a useful “disorienting dilemma” (Mezirow, 1991). This suggests that Bodyswaps is not an end point but a prompt within a wider pedagogical approach that encourages engagement, dialogue and transformation. Immersion happened in the productive discomfort and the interpersonal reflection in the shared, in-person environment, not in the headset or the simulated environment.
These experiences have prompted a shift towards viewing immersion as an embodied learning practice rather than a technological one. The depth of student engagement I am aiming for comes from the pedagogy, not the technology.
References
Bond, M. & Bedenlier, S. (2019). Facilitating Student Engagement Through Educational Technology: Towards a Conceptual Framework. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1(11), 1–14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.528
Bond, M., Buntins, K., Bedenlier, S., Zawacki-Richter, O. & Kerres, M. (2020). Mapping research in student engagement and educational technology in higher education: a systematic evidence map. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 17(2) https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0176-8
Chirico A. & Gaggioli A. (2023). Virtual reality for awe and imagination. Current Topics in Behavioural Neurosciences (Vol. 65, pp. 233–254). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2023_417
Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999
Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. Jossey-Bass.
Mori, M. (1970). The uncanny valley. Energy, 7, 33-35.
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SoTL Advent 2025 Editors: Edward Beggan, Shaun Bremner-Hart & Louise Sheridan