Educating Educators about Virtual Reality in Virtual Reality: Effective Learning Principles Operationalized in a VR Solution

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) is transforming organizational training as users are immersed in realistic situations that may not exist yet in the physical world. The theoretical principles that make VR effective for learning in an immersive way are emerging in literature but remain poorly understood in practice nor have they been articulated in available VR solutions. This study demonstrates an IT artifact that is targeted at educators in companies and in higher education. The study synthesizes the key principles that make VR environments effective for learning, derives design principles for a corresponding artifact and demonstrates a VR solution that enables educators to absorb the principles of the power of VR by experiencing them first hand. Creating this artifact and delivering it to educators is important as they are responsible for diffusing VR to current employees in companies and future workforce in higher education.