Navigation behaviors and experiences of undergraduate/graduate students in a 360-degree cued virtual horticulture classroom within Canvas: A case study
Date
2023-05
Authors
Zhou, Chuanli (Lili)
Major Professor
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Bahng, E.J.
Qu, Shuyang
Gilbert, Stephen
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Altmetrics
Abstract
This case study investigated navigation behaviors and experiences of six undergraduate/graduate students in a 360-degree cued virtual classroom, implemented and developed by the author and situated within the online Learning Management System called LMS Canvas. As a theoretical framework, this study is grounded within the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning as well as Signaling principles. The six participants, enrolled in a Midwestern State University, were invited to join a one-on-one online meeting to engage in the implemented 360-degree virtual horticulture classroom that had six image slides along with 34 content-specific cues. Data were collected from the following four sources: (1) Online screen recordings of each participant’s shared desktop of navigation route which consisted of mouse clicks on cued contents and viewing patterns over 360-degree slides; (2) Navigation experiences survey conducted after the 360-degree cued virtual classroom, and finally (3) Researcher observations and interviews. Findings indicated that the participants shared similar navigation patterns. For instance, they visited the front cues right in front of the screen. Simultaneously, the participants partially visited and missed the cues requiring navigation by dragging and dropping, a pointing device gesture. As for the navigation experiences, the participants who had prior experience on Virtual Reality technology tended to have more positive navigation experiences in the 360-degree virtual classroom. In general, undergraduate/graduate students show positive attitude on integrating 360-degree cued virtual classroom within the context of LMS Canvas. This study contributes to multimedia learning research by expanding the signaling principle in a new 360-degree learning environment built to a mimic an authentic online classroom. It also advocates that signaling/cueing as an instructional technique could be effective in the 360-degree virtual classroom within the context of LMS Canvas where mouse-based, subject-specific visual information navigations in a desktop-based virtual reality are highlighted.
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