VR Learning Experiment for EdTech Startup Lerntech

My role

I was the co-founder of Lerntech and responsible for applying psychological learning research to develop an evidence-based minimum viable product (MVP).

I worked closely with my technical co-founder to develop a German vocabulary learning game in the VR development platform Unity. Learning new vocabulary is one of the most challenging aspects of learning a new language.

We wanted to test the MVP against traditional methods of learning vocabulary to check if there was actually a learning improvement.

Therefore, I designed an experiment to quantitatively and qualitatively test the effectiveness of the MVP.

Specifically my tasks were to:

1. Design a two condition experiment to test the improvement hypothesis

2. Test and develop high-fidelity prototypes for both conditions

3. Evaluate and analyse the results of the experiment

Experimental Design

Testing the learning improvement hypothesis was challenging due to the time required of participants to complete both conditions and the desired amount of statistical power for comparison purposes.

Therefore a within subject experimental design was chosen. This meant each participant completed both conditions (in a randomised starting order). Each condition of the experiment had two vocabulary lists to avoid any repetition that could influence the experiment.

This allowed us to control for individual differences in vocabulary learning speed and reduce the required number of participants.

I also designed survey questions to assess how interactive, engaging and immersive participants found the experiences.

Vocabulary lists: The traditional (and boring) way to learn

VR High Fidelity Prototype (MVP)

The immersive gamified way to learn!

Users had to throw the correct vocabulary box at the yellow octopus in timed vocabulary training sessions.

They were surrounded by vocabulary item boxes that contained the same images as the traditional learning list.

See the videos of the prototype below.

Unexpectedly there was no greater learning in the VR condition. This could have been due to unfamiliarity with the use of the VR hardware but later research findings have also found limited improvements in overall learning when using VR.

This meant the main benefit of using VR for vocabulary learning was how immersive, fun and customisable it can be.

Completing this experiment taught me the importance of testing the benefits of new technology. It also taught me how research methods can be applied in industry to efficiently test an MVP and make important commercial decisions.

In the end, my co-founder and I stopped working on this Startup in 2017 because not enough people owned their own VR hardware and this would have make our business model very difficult to scale.