Instructional Design

These are my blog posts arranged by topic. My specialty within Instructional Design is design within virtual reality, VR or XR, or immersive environments. I have a few posts on general Instructional Design topics too.

From Myths to Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments

This series is an update of my original 8-part Instructional Design in the Metaverse series. I continue to bust myths related to learning in immersive environments while also advocating for research-based decisions related to instructional design.

I estimate that I have at least 15 parts right now, but new research comes in every day.

Part 1: From Myths To Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments

Part 2: The Immersive Environment Delusion

Part 3: The Case Against Virtual Campuses

Part 4: Myth: Learners Learn Faster

Part 5: Myth: Learners Learn More

Part 6: Myth: Immersive Learning is Active Learning

Part 7: Myth: Immersion Creates Empathy

Part 8 - soon

Instructional Design in the Metaverse

Part 1 Introduction

Part 2 Theory and Scope

Part 3 Myths versus Reality

Part 4 The Characteristics of Success

Part 5 What is the same between 2D and 3D design?

Part 6 What is different between 2D and 3D design?

Part 7 Design and Build

Part 8 Limitations, Serendipity, and Conclusion

My full references list

Bonus content! Check out my Behind the Scenes post 😎on this series.

Seeking Integrity Series

This represents similar themes to my Bad Research page but are updates to show that snake-oil salesmanship continues in the research, marketing, and publication arms of XR for education.

Seeking Integrity in VR Educational Research

😕 A June 2023 LinkedIn post claimed, "learners remember an astounding 90% of what they experience in VR compared to merely 10% of what they read and 20% of what they hear."

😡 I explain why sitting 10 inches from your monitor is NOT a comparable research condition for VR.

Seeking Integrity In VR Educational Research 2: PwC VR for Soft Skills

😕 An updated take on the Pricewaterhouse Cooper report which claims that after using VR, the learners were:

275% more confident to act on what they learned after training
4x faster than classroom training on average
4x more focused than e-learners
3.75x more emotionally connected to the content than classroom learner

😡 My conclusion

Being more confident? It is not clear how this was measured.
Focused? Self-reported data backed up by no instrumentation.
Emotionally connected? VR training is a not cognitively comparable to a classroom.
Report has a hidden "no significant difference" result in learning.

Seeking Integrity in VR Educational Research 3: It keeps on happening

This focuses on new publication players in the XR-for-education area:

Plus the PwC report pops up again!

There has since been one more new organization, The Academy of Immersive Arts and Sciences. They claim that, "we need centralized free and publicly available resources to foster the coming demand for creative and production talent." So they are a store, a glorified store, where you will spend money for things. I fail to see how 'academy' works well as a title word here. 😒 (BTW, Ben Erwin is a Co-Founder and President, who also made up the Polys-WebXR awards.)

Since this post there is another new publication, the Immersive Impact Review that describes itself as "a hybrid journalistic and academic magazine examining immersive media’s strive for social impact." There isn't really any such thing as hybrid when it comes to research. What would that mean? Partial truths? 😒