An Immersive Laboratory Environment for a Customized Learning Experience

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are important drivers of innovation, yet students are often unmotivated and do not understand why they need to learn these subjects. Virtual reality (VR) and virtual environments are useful tools for conceptual understanding with a high degree of immersion. They enable the creation of engaging and inspiring learning experiences. Additionally, personalization and customization can promote motivated usage and high user acceptability. A customized experience that takes into account the unique characteristics of the player can thus be an essential factor in learning. In this paper, we explore the potential of a customized learning environment to increase students’ motivation in learning physics. We present an AB study with 95 students to evaluate their motivation and experience during the learning process. The results indicate that the learning experience slightly increases when the learning process takes place in a customizable experimental environment.