Investigation of the Effects of Tennis Education Activities on Teacher Candidates in Virtual Reality Environment

DergiPark: 740065trakyasobedAlthough there are many studies focusing on virtual reality applications in the related literature, educationally designed and focusing on tennis training methodology, the study is almost nonexistent. In addition, there is no study comparing skill teaching specific to the tennis branch in terms of virtual education. Therefore, the evaluation of the effectiveness of virtual reality applications in tennis education has been determined as the main objective of the research. In accordance with this purpose; a total of 32 students who knew and did not know how to play tennis from Trakya University, Kırkpınar Sports Sciences Faculty, Teaching Department, which constitute the universe of the research, were chosen randomly by systematic stratification method. Three experimental groups were created. For virtual reality education; In the preliminary test of the research, the results obtained by applying KSBF entrance exam tennis test on the tennis court were recorded. Then, students were subjected to 32 hours of virtual tennis training in the school building with virtual reality training. At the last test stage; KSBF entrance exam tennis test was applied under the same conditions and the data were recorded. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS program and interpreted with the help of statistical table. As a result of the research; virtual tennis education applications have no effect on students who know how to play tennis, it has been determined that there is a significant developer effect on beginner players who do not know how to play tennis.İlgili alan yazında sanal gerçeklik uygulamalarına odaklanan birçok çalışma olmasına rağmen, eğitimsel açıdan tasarlanan ve tenis eğitim metodolojisine odaklanan çalışma neredeyse yok denecek kadar azdır. Ayrıca tenis branşına özgü beceri öğretimlerini sanal eğitim açısından karşılaştıran bir çalışma bulunmamaktadır. Bu nedenle sanal gerçeklik uygulamalarının tenis eğitiminde etkililiğinin değerlendirilmesi araştırmanın ana temel amacı olarak belirlenmiştir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda; araştırmanın evrenini oluşturan Trakya Üniversitesi, Kırkpınar Spor Bilimleri Fakültesi, Öğretmenlik Bölümü öğrencilerinden tenis oynamayı bilen ve bilmeyen toplam 32 öğrenci, sistematik tabakalama yöntemi ile rastgele seçilerek üç deney gurubu oluşturulmuştur. Sanal gerçeklik eğitimi için; araştırmanın ön testinde öğrencilere tenis kortunda KSBF giriş sınav tenis testi uygulanarak elde edilen sonuçlar kayıt altına alınmıştır. Daha sonra öğrenciler, sanal gerçeklik eğitimi ile okul binasında 32 saatlik sanal tenis eğitimine tabi tutulmuştur. Son test aşamasında; KSBF giriş sınav tenis testi aynı şartlar altında uygulanarak veriler kaydedilmiştir. Toplanan veriler SPSS programı ile analiz edilerek, istatistiksel tablo yardımı ile yorumlanmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda; sanal tenis eğitimi uygulamalarının tenis oynamayı bilen öğrenciler üzerinde etkisinin olmadığı, tenis oynamayı bilmeyen, başlangıç seviyesindeki oyunculara anlamlı derecede geliştirici etkisinin olduğu tespitlerine ulaşılmıştır

Serious Games for First Responders

In this chapter, serious games for fire and rescue services and medical personnel are investigated. Command training and joint training are considered for the value it can provide in all first responder services learning to work together

The ARP Virtual Reality System in Addressing Security Threats and Disaster Scenarios

Nations, corporations and political organizations around the world today are forced to deal with an increasing number of security threats. As a result, various organizations must find ways to adequately equip and prepare themselves to handle numerous dangerous and life threatening circumstances. Virtual reality is an extremely important technology that can be used across a variety of different fields and for a number of diverse applications, ranging from simulation training to visualization tools, in order to prepare for and manage disaster situations. Head mounted display (HMD) virtual reality systems attempt visually to immerse the user in a virtual environment. However, it is well recognized that latency, the delay in responding to a user\u27s head movement, is a major shortcoming that plagues immersive HMD virtual reality systems. Excessive latency destroys the illusion of reality that such systems attempt to present to the user. A hardware architecture known as the address recalculation pipeline (ARP) and a computer graphics rendering technique called priority rendering, were designed to reduce the end-to-end latency suffered by immersive HMD virtual reality systems. This paper discusses the benefits of using the ARP virtual reality system in addressing security threats and disaster situations

Embodying the Other: Effects of Experiencing the Rubber Hand Illusion in Virtual Reality on Implicit Racial Biases

Research on the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) has recently begun to explore induced body ownership exercises as a means for experimentally changing implicit social attitudes. Similarly, recent innovations in Virtual Reality (VR) have lead researchers to begin investigating VR as a tool for empathy training and perspective taking. The present study addresses these two fields of research by replicating the RHI in VR, with the goal of inducing body ownership over virtual hands of racial outgroups. A race Implicit Association Test was administered to measure racial biases before and after the illusion. It was predicted that participants who experienced the illusion with the virtual hand of a race different than their own would show greater changes in performance on the post-illusion Implicit Association Test. By and large, results did not show a significant difference between the different hand conditions, though there was a marginally significant effect of racial membership on the strength of ownership during the illusion. Future research should focus on assessing pre-existing implicit attitudes, in order to clarify the question concerning which types of people benefit the most from these body ownership exercises that aim to change social biases

Virtual worlds as a context suited for information systems education: discussion of pedagogical experience and curriculum design with reference to second life

The context of Information Communication Technology (ICT) is changing dramatically. Today, Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and MySpace are used ubiquitously in the general population, and Virtual Worlds are becoming increasingly popular in business, for example via simulations in Second Life. However the capacity of Virtual Worlds is underutilised in educational contexts. Educational institutions in general, but especially those offering Information Systems (IS) courses, must keep pace with emerging ICT and social trends or risk becoming irrelevant. Furthermore, there are particular pedagogical advantages in utilising emerging technologies such as Virtual Worlds in IS education. For instance, Second Life offers an intrinsically motivating, safe, and low cost environment in which to learn IS-related skills such as programming, requirements analysis, systems development, project management, and business process modelling. Drawn from the experience of the authors and current innovations in pedagogical research and practice, suggestions are made for curriculum design and implementation of Second Life in IS Education, including: the benefits of blending the real and Virtual Worlds; enhancement of students? intrinsic motivation; industry-relevant skill transfer; and innovative education that transcends traditional pedagogical practices. These points are illustrated with reference to case studies of IS student projects in Second Life from the University of Hamburg and Curtin Business School. Attention is given to current limitations of this emerging technology, regarding hardware, software, and connectivity. Future developments in both the technology and how it is implemented in educational contexts, integrating the real and virtual worlds via emerging technologies, are mentioned

Development of an immersive game-based virtual reality training program to teach fire safety skills to children

Injuries from residential fires are often overlooked as a dangerous safety concern for children. While lectures and classroom learning techniques can be effective in mitigating this risk, studies have shown that kids retain information better if they are allowed to practice escape techniques. Virtual Reality (VR) has been used both to simulate situations that are too dangerous to practice in real life and as a tool to help children learn. This thesis presents the two stage development of the Fire Safety Project, a game-based VR training environment to increase children\u27s understanding of fire safety. In the first iteration students help firefighters to identify home fire hazards and then practice escaping from a simulated fire in a virtual environment. Surveys administered show that participants felt that they had learned something during training. Many young participants also wanted to have active control over the virtual environment. In response, the second iteration is more game-based and allows children to explore the environment independently and zap fire hazards with the help of a tracked 6DOF wand. A user study was carried out and results indicate that students enjoyed the program; however there were no concrete learning gains from the use of the VR simulation

The role of simulation-based learning environments in preparing undergraduate health students for clinical practice

Experiential learning (EL), whereby students are able to integrate theory with practice, is an essential component of learning for health professionals. Traditionally, EL in the health education context has been achieved through clinical placements (CPs) that see students ‘apprentice’ in real clinical settings. The literature suggests there are a number of factors that diminish a student’s ability to learn in such environments, including limited opportunities to practice, being confined primarily to observation roles as opposed to participate in tasks, being exposed to skills/procedures outside their level of learning/understanding, and institutional learning objectives being secondary to workplace goals. Simulation-based learning environments (SLEs) have been espoused as an effective alternative to traditional CPs, as they provide EL opportunities void of patient risk, and can be targeted to suit the needs of both teacher and learner. While many advocate that SLEs are the logical teaching modality for preparing students to practice in real clinical environments, the fast adoption of SLEs in health education has far exceeded evidence of its effectiveness in comparison to learning occurring via CPs. Research investigating SLEs to date has, for the most part, relied upon subjective measures of student satisfaction, confidence and competence and has utilised single-group analyses providing no yardstick for comparison. The present research sought to explore the value of SLEs for undergraduate health students in comparison to CPs, as well as investigate methods of improving the educational benefit of SLEs. This thesis is presented as a series of papers (i.e. PhD by publication) addressing the role of SLEs in health education. Study One investigates how social evaluation anxiety (SEA) impacts on performance amongst a sample of final-year nursing students. It was found that through increasing the number of professional actors in a simulation-based clinical scenario, social evaluation anxiety increased to an extent sufficient to detrimentally affect student performance. Thus, the study concluded that students would likely benefit from additional authentic exposures to EL opportunities earlier throughout their curriculum, so as to acclimatise them to real patient and person interaction. Studies Two and Three explore the differences and relationship between SLEs and CPs amongst first-year paramedicine students. The extent to which SLEs provide additional learning benefit in subsequent CPs was first established, followed by evidence suggesting this is most likely attributable to the increased opportunity for repetitive and targeted practice meant and why I did it. To my father, Rick Mills, unexpectedly losing you in December last year was unquestionably the most tragic time of my life, but the life lessons you embedded so strongly within me saw this thesis through to completion. I cannot thank you enough, and dedicate this accomplishment to you

Effects Of Content Augmentation Strategies In An Instructional Virtual Environment

Content augmentation strategies (CAS) are instructional methods which specify the overlaying of content objects by content augmentation objects in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of instruction. The goals of this research were to build a comprehensive framework around CASs, determine the experimental effects of CASs in an instructional virtual environment (VE), and make recommendations regarding the employment and further study of CASs in instructional virtual environments. The VE experiment examined the effectiveness and efficiency impact of six different content augmentation strategies which overlayed different content augmentation objects onto four immersive VE scenarios. Sixty university students, 40 men and 20 women, executed three CAS-enhanced training missions and one no-CAS test mission. The task involved the recall and correct application of specific rules for three subtasks of a military helicopter landing zone scouting mission. The strategies included a no-strategy control condition, an arrow condition, an audio coaching condition, a text coaching condition, an arrow plus audio coaching condition, and an arrow plus text coaching condition. Statistical and decision analyses were conducted on the effectiveness and efficiency performance data. Statistically significant differences were found which supported the general superiority of the audio content augmentation strategy for these tasks. This dissertation may be the first use of a decision analysis approach for analyzing the results of behavioral data for instructional design decisions. The decision analysis approach used decision trees, simulation and optimization to obtain content augmentation strategy rankings. As this approach is normally used for course of action analysis and comparing alternative system configurations, the validity of this approach in this context has yet to be determined. The decision analysis approach obtained plausible and similar, but not identical recommendations to the statistical approach. The decision analysis approach may constitute a limited instantiation of a proposed optimal stimulus set instructional design model which conceptually framed the experiment. Training guideline recommendations, experimental procedure recommendations, and a comprehensive framework for future research are also presented

Investigating the Transfer of Learning, Psychological, and Neural Effects in Immersive Virtual Reality

Achieving mastery or expertise requires a substantial amount of quality practice. Recent technological developments have introduced a novel approach to practice, virtual reality. Specifically, virtual reality offers a low-cost, customizable opportunity to practice while minimizing the risk of the individual. Given that some types of practice may not lead to the acquisition of a motor skill, or worse, lead to detriments of that skill, understanding the developing science of motor behavior in relation to virtual reality is imperative. The following literature review will begin with a brief historical account of the evolution of virtual reality. Next, some terms of virtual reality will be defined, and the technological characteristics will be introduced. Then, fundamental theories of transfer of learning and important variables which likely contribute to transfer of learning will be discussed. In the following section, the current understanding of virtual reality and motor learning will be explained. Research that has examined transfer of learning within immersive virtual reality will then be examined and discussions of the findings and limitations will be presented. Finally, to address the aforementioned shortcomings, the following project was a two-experimental study to investigate the transfer of learning effects of virtual reality motor skill practice