Be ware the XR for learning hype
On September 15, 2021, I decided to start sharing some of the "really boiled down" basics of XR for learning that has come out of research. Honestly, I thought this would cause NO ripples and little interest--because I thought everyone knew this already. But I was applying to job at a shop where one of the leaders is a skateboarder (skateboarding has NOTHING to do with getting jobs there nor to do with XR) so I thought I'd send a metamessage with this image.
My humble analytics:
What I didn't expect was that people would want to "tack on" to what I said. Here they come. I've left most names out. Because I have advertised myself as someone "mansplained to on Twitter" I'm showing the gender of the tweet author with a gif.
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"More cognitively adhesive"
In my old science faculty crowd, we would laugh about that for a minute and then say "That would make a GREAT punk band name!"
Seriously, "more cognitively adhesive" doesn't exist.
I get that he's saying that learning that happens in XR stays with the learner longer. Yes, I've seen those studies. They tend to be non-comparable and non-replicable studies.
Non-comparable
That means that they compare a cognitively different learning method which has lower "cognitive adhesion" with XR that magically has higher cognitive adhesion. It's not fair to say that XR caused that when truly, better designed learning probably caused that.
Said in a completely different way: If I could create learning with an infinte amount of resources at my control (time, money, teachers, spaces, assets, and who knows...maybe seals with balls on their noses), I could get the SAME results as the XR did. Thus, XR did NOT cause the "higher cognitive adhesion". See? Cause and effect. If I can create the same effect with a different cause then the suspected cause that you have [XR], then your cause isn't the real cause.
Non-replicable
In this case, I mean that the effects of gains in XR learning tend to wash away over time. That's the novelty effect, which we are very familiar with in instructional design. We see it all the time in one-off research studies.
For example, a teacher brings in a bunch of headsets. The teacher announces to the learners that they will be involved in some research with a new piece of technology.
Magically, the learners do better on an assessment than learners that don't have the techology.
But did the technology cause the learners to score better? No. The learners have their expectations changed, raised, and the excitement from the teacher usually bleeds into the results. How to test for novelty effect? Use the same technology over and over and over and over and THEN when the students are truly bored and nonchalant with the technology, test them again. They'll probably score right back down to where you started. So the technology did NOT make the difference.
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When it's published, aye? Ok. I'll wait.
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Did you notice that RIGHT THERE he referred to me BY NAME and not by my Twitter handle. Technically, he got it wrong as when referring to a doctor, you use one title (Dr. in front, PhD after) or the other, not both.
To be fair, I DID get sent two documents by email. One was a lit review for the "Could VR help reduce the risk for dementia?" question. It seeks to say that users of VR that learn about heading a ball in soccer (European football) will learn a SAFE way to do it or never do it all and hence, reduce their future risk of dementia from sports head injury damage. No actual research.
But, hey, I will wait.
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I actually did search this because I did know that Bailenson's advice aligns with mine because we both read the same research. Duh.
But I found this source: https://stanfordvr.com/video/2019/transformative-experiences-vr-for-good/
If you look at that tag line, it's borderline confusing. DICE is this list of REAL WORLD SITUATIONS where, then, VR would be advised. DICE is not the list of VR situations where it's a good idea, uh...therefore...after you bothered and went to all the work of making it...to make it.
And the DICE acronym is from his Experience on Demand book. The trick
is HOW YOU EXPRESS IT. So I clarified it with the tweet author.
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I realize that it might look like I'm muddying the waters here but it's very easy to slip and, as I just showed, start to scope creep about what XR is good for beyond its original boundaries.
I posted the same idea but phrased differently on LinkedIn, so I knew I was going to get "suggestions" so I made my post open and inviting to them. Here's what came in:
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I'll keep updating this blog as more comes in. 😆