Welcome, How Can I Help You? Design Considerations for a Virtual Reality Environment to Support the Orientation of Online Initial Teacher Education Students

Alongside the rapid and broad uptake of online learning in higher education, fully online students report feeling isolated and disconnected from their institutions. Although formal course content may be expertly designed to engage online learners, much of the information provided to support higher education students' orientation to the institution and to study is presented online in a written static form. Such presentations may not be accessible and engaging and may contribute to feelings of disconnection. Technologies such as virtual reality (VR) are being used in higher education to engage, motivate and connect students in their learning. This paper reports on the early design stages for a VR that aims to support initial teacher education students to connect and engage with key orienting information. The design of the VR was achieved by following a user-centred, iterative engineering design process and design principles of spatiality, interaction and narrative. The VR environment emulates the School of Education's physical, on-campus reception area to provide an immersive experience where students have a choice in the types and format of key study information they receive. This experience was designed to be utilised in online orientation but also throughout students' first year of study. Future research directions include collecting student responses to the VR to inform how students can be involved in enhancing the VR so that it supports their learning and sense of connection. Furthermore, future research can aim for the expansion of the VR inclusive of additional information, rooms and buildings and increased capabilities such as gamification and mobile access. This will enable the creation of a valuable teaching resource for online programs.