Investigating Students’ Engagement, Enjoyment, and Sociability in Virtual Reality-Based Systems: A Comparative Usability Study of Spatial.io, Gather.town, and Zoom

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted globally on many industries worldwide (e.g., business and tourism). It has also caused unprecedented disruption to Thailand's educational system. For instance, regular face-to-face classrooms had been temporarily stopped and moved to full-time online learning in which educators and students have used commercially available e-learning platforms (e.g., Moodle) and conferencing tools (e.g., Zoom). Although e-learning platforms and conferencing tools have shown benefits for both educators and learners, social interaction is limited on such platforms. Alternative solutions such as Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have shown promise to solve these challenges; however, research is limited in using such VR technologies in higher education in Thailand. To fill these gaps, we conducted a comparative usability study of three different learning platforms (three-dimensional VR - Spatial.io, two-dimensional VR - Gather.town, and Zoom application) to understand differences in usability and user experiences in terms of students' engagement, enjoyment, and their sociability in learning. Findings suggest that due to its game-like environment and user-friendly features and user interface, Gather.town is the most promising alternative for online learning in higher education in Thailand. This study suggests opportunities for using game-like virtual classrooms for students to improve their engagement in learning.