Learning experience design with immersive virtual reality in physics education

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) simulations are argued to support students’ learning of complex scientific phenomena via the use of realistic graphics and interactions that students can hardly experience in everyday life. However, the integration of immersive VR simulations in science classrooms introduces new challenges, whilst there is a lack of learning designs to inform practice. As part of this study, we firstly present a learning experience (LX) design seeking to introduce an immersive VR simulation in Physics classrooms to support high-school students’ understanding of the Special Theory of Relativity. Then, we present an empirical investigation on the enactment and evaluation of the proposed LX design, with 109 high-school students (10–11th graders). A mixed-method approach was adopted to evaluate students’ conceptual learning gains along with their perceptions of the learning experience, encompassing the immersive VR simulation and the inquiry-based learning process adopted. We reflect on our LX design aimed at the integration of an immersive VR simulation in an inquiry-based learning environment and we highlight questions for further research.