VR in education

The behavior and even the appearance of the virtual teacher can be adapted to best suit the student's interests. In the project, we focus on improving the technology of avatars and to make them as natural as possible. This means that we are working on natural speech and behaviors, facial movements and appropriate expressions to go with a dialogue.

In this project, we investigate the use of a virtual teacher in primary education. We conduct studies in primary schools on the various aspects of the embodiment of a virtual teacher, such as speech, characteristics and contextual relevance. In a study on computer-generated speech in Dutch, we tested different Dutch voices made from varying amounts of training data. We evaluated the voice quality of the text-to-speech (TTS) models and also evaluated to what extent the quality of the voice affects how well students remember information. In another study, we explored the effects of combining TTS voices with VR agents, focusing on student perceptions and recall. Do students have a better perception of TTS voices when paired with a VR agent? 

In our most recent VR study, we delved deeper into the effects of content-matched VR environments and agent outfit on learning outcomes and experience. Do students show improved performance when the VR agent's outfit and the environment are tailored to match the learning content? We are currently expanding our research to investigate how agent interactivity influences students' learning outcomes and overall experience, aiming to optimize both educational efficacy and student engagement in VR settings.