The potential of virtual reality for computer science education -engaging students through immersive visualizations

Popular problems of Computer Science Education that are often solved using algorithms include various number sorting tasks. Sorting algorithms have the potential to emphasize powerful programming paradigms and also to start discussions about algorithm complexity. Research has shown that hands-on activities using analogies and fun activities instead of programming tasks can foster learning in this area in many different ways. In times when much teaching and learning takes place online, the implementing of such unplugged activities can become difficult. Visualizations and animations can help to achieve learning outcomes by making these relatively abstract phenomena more concrete. In particular, virtual reality environments can provide new forms for interacting with visualizations and might well foster motivational, emotional, and perceptual factors that have an influence on learning processes. This paper investigates the differences between these subjective variables in a web application and a VR application for learning sorting algorithms. The results produced initial indicators that learners experience higher presence, absorption, flow, psychological immersion and positive emotions in a virtual reality setting compared to a desktop setting.