Preservice Teachers’ Motivational Reactions to Online Instructional Materials on Immersive Technology

Kevin J. Graziano

Nevada State Collegekevin.graziano@nsc.edu

Shawn DaleyConcordia University

sdaley@cu-portland.edu

Abstract: Within teacher education, there is limited literature on the use of contemporary immersive technologies with preservice teachers. The purpose of this study was to examine preservice teachers’ motivational reactions to self-directed online instructional materials used to study and apply immersive technology, augmented, virtual, and 3D reality, in an undergraduate, educational technology course. Data were collected using the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) (Keller, 2010). Findings suggest that the online instructional materials used to learn and apply immersive technology motivated students to complete their studies on immersive technology. The research design and course context are also discussed in this article.

Introduction

Is immersive technology simply a high-priced fad or does it provide an affordance for supporting teacher preparation? Our study was aimed at examining the recent revolution in the various tools of immersive technology or virtuality. Included therein are what are commonly referred to as virtual, augmented, and 360/spherical realities, which we believe hold potential, when bundled together in a pedagogical learning experience, to successfully motivate preservice teachers when considering their instructional materials. This study included preservice teachers from a teacher preparation program located in the southwest and evaluated how undergraduate students would respond to creating and interfacing with immersive technology. Our results demonstrate a path for new development in teacher preparation.

Literature Review

While recent attention has been focused on the new opportunities of virtuality and immersive technologies, the affordances of educational integration of virtuality have been explored for decades, dating back to virtuality’s general inception by Ivan Sutherland in the 1960s (Dede, 2009). Further, while there has been consistent academic debate chronicled about “what counts” within the sphere of virtuality and immersive technology (Dede, 2009; Liao, 2016), particularly with regards to explaining what is immersive, there is substantive support for the research posited by Milgram, Takemura, Utesumi, & Kishino (1994), which introduced the Reality-Virtuality Continuum (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Virtuality Continuum (Milgram, Takemura, Utsumi, & Koshino, 1994)

While extensive and intelligent works have contended that these types of immersive technologies should be treated separately, Milgram and Kishino found it was “more convenient to refer to view AR (augmented reality) & VR (virtual reality) as lying at opposite ends of this continuum,” rather than as “antithesis” (p. 283). Their work provides the foundation for contemplating a wide array of what are sometimes categorized as separate tools under one particular umbrella for purposes of wider study. In the past several years, the utility of various elements of virtuality and immersive technology in education have been discussed, from broad overviews of applications (Wu, Lee, Chang & Liang, 2013) to specific use cases like environmental field trips (Dunleavy, Dede, & Mitchell, 2009). Some have investigated the affordances and constraints with leveraging mobile devices to be able to integrate with augmented reality (Dunleavy, 2010), since the tools have become available through apps and wearable technology. An enterprising exploratory study (Castenada & Pacampara, 2016) evaluated the various challenges and opportunities for different types of immersive tools with a cadre of seven educators and nearly 400 students across the United States, moving into the realm of having K-12 students create content in virtual environments. Within teacher education, however, there is limited examination of contemporary immersive technologies. The most recent research delved into the educational affordances and use cases of virtuality with large-scale tools. One of the more well known is the TeachLIVE lab, a virtual reality simulator that provides teacher preparation candidates opportunities to experience simulations of classroom experiences (Myers, Starrett, Stewart & Hansen-Thomas, 2016). In a similar fashion, an Australian university attempted to put preservice teachers into a blended reality environment with students who were represented virtually as avatars (Bower, Lee, & Delgarno, 2016). The literature today is limited on any cases where mobile immersive tools on the virtuality spectrum have been leveraged with regards to teacher preparation.

Theoretical Framework

Our study examines preservice teachers’ motivational reactions to self-directed online instructional materials used to study and apply immersive technology, augmented, virtual, and 3D reality, in an undergraduate, educational technology course. We evaluated the students using the ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction) framework developed by John Keller (2008). ARCS was developed by Keller to provide a richer theoretical basis for understanding motivation in learning. The model itself both provides four main motivational concepts as well as a means for “analyzing, designing, developing and evaluating motivational strategies in an instructional setting” (Francom & Reeves, 2010; see Figure 2).

The goal of using this model is to evaluate whether the materials that an instructor creates do in fact grab a learner’s attention, appear important, establish trust and leave the learner believing that the materials conveyed what they intended to. Further, from a teacher preparation perspective, the model provides an opportunity for the preservice teacher to contemplate the materials that they might create in such a way that they are more conscientious about their own professional classroom competencies.

Figure 2: ARCS Model (Keller, 1987; reprinted from Francom & Reeves, 2010)

The model laid the groundwork for the frequently implemented and oft-validated Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) (Keller, 2010), which we leveraged with students in an educational technology course and describe in greater detail in our methods section. The IMMS contains a battery of 36 questions that assess how a student is motivated by the instructional materials that they have the opportunity to study. In this particular case, we chose to leverage the survey as a means to see preservice teacher reaction to contemporary immersive technologies, permitting us the opportunity to see whether those technologies motivated 21st century students in a way that would influence their nascent teacher skills.

Purpose and Research Question

This study examines preservice teachers’ motivational reactions on the instructional materials used to study and apply immersive technology, augmented, virtual, and 3D reality, in an undergraduate, educational technology course. The research question that guided this study was, what are the motivational reactions from undergraduate preservice teachers to self-directed, online instructional materials used to learn and apply immersive technology?

Methods

Participants

Participants of this study included 27 undergraduate preservice teachers from a small, undergraduate college in the southwest. Participants were enrolled in Preparing Teachers to Use Technology during the summer 2016 semester. Twenty-three participants were female and four were male. Six participants were sophomores, 15 were juniors, two were seniors, and 4 participants were post baccalaureate students. Nine participants were elementary education majors, 10 were secondary education majors, six participants were speech pathology majors, and two students selected other as their major. Two participants were certified classroom teachers. One student was a substitute teacher, and two participants stated that they studied and used immersive technology prior to this course. Three students reported they created or used augmented, virtual reality, or 3D with education planning and/or teaching.

Course Context

Participants completed a four-week module on immersive technology, which included augmented, virtual, and 3D reality. During week one, participants created an augmented reality project on one of, but not limited to, the following items: homework lessons, faculty photo wall, book reviews, parent involvement, yearbooks, word walls, lab safety, or deaf and hard of hearing sign language flashcards. During week two, participants read about virtual reality in education, studied the SAMR model (Puentedura, 2015) of technology integration, and explored virtual reality apps using the free EON experience app. Participants then searched YouTube and the Internet for three, free virtual reality apps that they would like to use in three different lesson plans.

To reduce the anxiety of finding an app appropriate for teaching academic content to K-12 students, participants were provided with a list of apps to consider provided by the professor. Participants downloaded their selected virtual reality apps to their smartphones or mobile devices, and created three lesson plans that utilized each app to transform learning "above the line" according to the SAMR model.

During week three, participants utilized social media, Twitter and Pinterest, as professional learning networks. They tweeted their thoughts of using immersive technology, and shared how immersive technology can be used in the classroom. Then, participants searched for two individuals on Twitter who were tweeting about immersive technology (augmented, virtual, or 3D reality), and interacted with their tweets. Participants posted to the discussion board in the learning management system (LMS), (1) what they found (provided a descriptive summary of the tweets and posted by whom), and (2) a summary of their responses to those they followed. After reading about Pinterest and how educators use Pinterest in the classroom, participants ended week three by creating a board on Pinterest. Their boards contained 12-15 pins on immersive technology. The links to their boards were posted to their discussion board in the LMS.

During week four, the final week of the module, participants viewed videos and examples on why and how to create 3D lesson plans using EON Creator, an online 3D creation tool. Participants’ 3D lessons were not limited to specific academic content, but had to be created using EON creator, and had to include the following: an object (content topic), at least five annotations, one quiz with five questions relevant to the content, one YouTube video related to

object, one link to Wikipedia related to the object, one link to an Internet website with more info on the object, one PowerPoint presentation with 3-4 pages that outline the main features of the object, and one audio file that describes a feature of the object. Technical support was available to all students via office hours, telephone, and video conferencing.

Data Collection

The Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (Keller, 2010) was utilized in this study to collect data. The survey was designed to measure students' motivational reactions to self-directed instructional materials, and is not intended to measure students’ generalized levels of motivation toward school learning, that is, they are not trait or construct type measures. The goal of the survey is to measure how motivated students are with respect to a particular course and its content.

The survey was administered electronically, with permission from Keller, to participants at the end of the semester. The survey was created in Qualtrics, contained 36 items, and was divided into four subscales: (1) Attention, (2) Relevance, (3) Confidence, and (4) Satisfaction. The Relevance and the Confidence subscales both have nine items. The Satisfaction subscale has six, and the Attention subscale has 12 items. According to Keller (2010), there is disproportionate number of items in the Attention and Satisfaction subscales because boredom and lack of stimulation are ubiquitous characteristics in instructional writing and the Satisfaction subscale does not have as many points of connection to printed materials as the others (p. 282). The response scales ranged from 1 to 5 with 1 being Not True and 5 being Very True. The internal consistency estimates, based on Cronbach’s alpha, were satisfactory (Keller, 2010; see Table 1).

Scale Reliability Estimate(Cronbach α)

Attention .89

Relevance .81

Confidence .90

Satisfaction .92

Total scale .96

Table 1. IMMSS reliability estimates

Data Analysis

Data was scored for each of the four subscales. Using SPSS, descriptive statistics were generated. The average score for each subscale and the total scale was calculated. According to Keller (2010), one cannot designate a given score as high or low because there are no norms for the survey. Scores obtained at one point, as in a pretest, can be compared with subsequent scores

or with the scores obtained by people in a comparison group. Also, as it is a situation-specific measure, there is no expectation of a normal distribution of responses.

Results

Twenty-seven students enrolled in Preparing Teachers to Use Technology completed the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (Keller, 2010) online. The research question asked, what are the motivational reactions from undergraduate preservice teachers to self-directed, online instructional materials used to learn and apply immersive technology? Descriptive statistics from the four subscales of the survey, Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction, will be presented in this section.

The average score for the subscale Attention was 3.65. Students, overall, believed the strategies used in the module aroused and sustained their curiosity and interest in immersive technology (see Table 1). The average score for the subscale Relevance was 3.45. Students, overall, believed the strategies used in the module were linked to their needs, interests, and motives (see Table 2). The average score for the subscale Confidence was 3.28. Students, overall, believed the strategies used in the module helped them develop a positive expectation for successful achievement with content from the module (see Table 3). The average score for the subscale Satisfaction was 3.29. Students, overall, believed the strategies used in the module provided students with extrinsic and intrinsic reinforcement for their effort in completing the module (see Table 4). An additional item was added to the end of the survey. It read, After completing this module, I am excited to use the material (augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D) learned in this module in my own classroom. The average score for the final item in the survey was 3.07 (see Table 5). The average for the entire scale was 3.42. This excluded the additional item that was added by the researchers of this study.

Survey Item # Min Max M SD2 1 5 3.19 1.318 1 5 3.56 1.1011 1 5 3.56 1.2612 1 5 3.70 1.3815 1 5 4.19 1.2217 1 5 3.19 1.2520 1 5 3.22 1.2022 1 5 4.07 1.2724 1 5 3.56 1.1728 1 5 3.15 1.4129 1 5 4.19 1.1631 1 5 4.26 1.20

Average Subscale Score

1 5 3.65 1.24

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics from Attention Subscale in Survey

Survey Item # Min Max M SD6 1 5 2.78 1.079 1 5 3.78 1.0710 1 5 3.85 1.2716 1 5 2.74 1.1718 1 5 3.44 0.9223 1 5 3.44 1.2026 1 3 4.70 0.6630 1 5 3.0 1.1933 1 5 3.30 1.05

Average Subscale Score

1 4.78 3.45 1.07

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics from Relevance Subscale in Survey

Survey Item # Min Max M SD1 1 4 1.85 .893 1 5 3.22 1.314 1 5 3.19 1.167 1 5 3.85 1.2113 1 5 3.52 1.2019 1 5 3.56 1.2025 1 5 3.41 1.3134 1 5 3.59 1.3935 1 5 3.37 1.19

Average Subscale Score

1 4.89 3.28 1.21

Table 3: Descriptive Statistics from Confidence Subscale in Survey

Survey Item # Min Max M SD5 1 5 3.26 1.2914 1 5 3.07 1.5121 1 5 3.04 1.4327 1 5 3.19 1.3632 1 5 3.93 1.3036 1 5 3.22 1.26

Average Subscale Score

1 5 3.29 1.36

Table 4: Descriptive Statistics from Satisfaction Subscale in Survey

Responses to the additional item at the end of the survey, After completing this module, I am excited to use the material (augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D) learned in this module in my own classroom, were as follows:

Additional Survey Item

Min. Max. M SD

37 1 5 3.07 1.33Table 5: Descriptive Statistics from Additional Survey Item

Discussion

The results of our study of immersive technologies with preservice teachers provide new opportunity for teacher educators to become familiar with immersive technologies and integrate such tools into the curriculum. While we are aware of several limitations with this work, we believe that the survey results inspire confidence in our continuing efforts to integrate immersive technologies within teacher preparation.

It was not a surprise that the survey results indicated that the subscale Attention (M = 3.65, SD = 1.24) scored the highest among preservice teachers. There might certainly be a novelty effect for contemporary students when asked to leverage virtual and augmented reality within their teacher preparation experience. It would be interesting to see if this tool made them contemplate their need as educators to keep abreast of technological developments, and whether this excited or frustrated them. Nevertheless, the fact that the score for Relevance did not see a dramatic drop off (M= 3.45, SD = 1.07) in student responses seems to indicate that students could recognize that the affordance of this technology was pertinent to their practice.

Less shocking was the Confidence subscale score (M = 3.28, SD = 1.21), which might have been the result of the same student inexperience with these tools. Given the course was taught online might have also increased student unease with the tools, since instructor access was limited. The Satisfaction subscale score (M = 3.29, SD = 1.36) demonstrated that generally, the students were pleased with this module in advancing their burgeoning practice. The average student seemed to believe that this experience was in fact helping to build their pedagogical knowledge in such a way that they would be better equipped to serve their future students. It would be useful to investigate how specifically students felt at the end of the module when it came to their thoughts on how this adequately prepared them for the classroom. Certainly, the fact the lowest subscale score came from our follow up question that gauged their excitement to use these technologies when they taught (M = 3.07, SD = 1.33) makes us interested in delving deeper into understanding the students’ engagement or frustration.

We recognize that this particular study was confined to a solitary group operating with one particular teaching modality (online). We believe that further study needs to be done to validate this experience, not only with other groups who are learning primarily online, but also those that are learning in on ground and blended/hybrid environments.

Conclusion

Immersive technologies have had a long path to the classroom. For many, there were too

many constraints or risks associated with using these tools in the regular classroom. However, through our pilot study, we have been able to identify that today’s preservice teachers are not only able to integrate these technologies into their starting pedagogical toolkit, but they also might be further impacted motivationally to do better with their instructional design based on how we tracked their motivational response to the use of those technologies. The opportunity therefore, in further research, is quite profound, as leveraging these tools, particularly as they come down in costs, could be a boon for instructors of educational technology and their charges.

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