Higher education is one of the oldest, most consistent models that exists. For over 1,000 years, the construct in which students are taught and consume information has remained relatively stable.
The shifts from physical textbooks to PDFs, paper tests to online quizzes, and assemblies to online databases have all changed how students are delivered content. But none of these evolutions have significantly impacted efficiency.
Extended reality (XR), the combination of virtual, augmented and mixed reality, offers an opportunity to change all that.
Imagine being transported to the Moon during your first-year physics lecture, to drop a hammer and a feather simultaneously to understand how they react with gravity. Or, consider the impact of a Biology lab taking part in a virtual dissection, where students can shrink down to a cellular level (think Magic School Bus), and travel the circulatory system while their teacher’s voice guides them through the experience.
The potential impact of extended reality on learning is incredible. Are we years away from it being a scalable, viable product for schools to implement? Yes. But there’s a case to be made for why it’s crucial for schools to understand the value of this world before it becomes available to them.
Today, we’re making that case. Sourcing government and school data, student surveys, and a host of studies, we will break down why schools need to embrace this new form of learning.
Key Insights at a Glance
- The cost of a US college degree has soared relative to overall inflation. Since 1980, average college tuition fees have increased by nearly 1,200%, while inflation is up 250%.1
- 81% of the 105,000 international students surveyed believed that tuition should be discounted if university courses remain partially online.
- The upfront cost of building and implementing extended reality (XR) learning programs typically ranges from $20,000 to $100,000 USD.
- A 2022 PwC study found that 40% of VR learners were more confident in applying what they’ve been taught and 150% more engaged, compared to classroom-based learners.
The Financial and Accessibility Implications of XR
One of the most significant potential impacts of using XR as an instructional tool is improving the efficiency of learning. It has the power to increase accessibility and drive down long-term costs.
The cost of obtaining a college degree in the US has soared relative to overall inflation. Since 1980, average college tuition fees have increased by nearly 1,200%, while inflation is up 250%.
The cost of education has skyrocketed, but why? Despite the advancement and inclusion of technology in education, we haven’t actually seen productivity improvements. Most institutions are not teaching more students per teacher than ever before, are not teaching faster, and are not increasing the time required to teach.
One of the simplest ways to drive down tuition costs per student is to increase class sizes. But schools are handcuffed by physical space across their facilities. They can only offer spots to the number of students that fit into their classrooms.
From 2006/07 to 2022/23, annual tuition for international students in Canada has increased by 2.7 times. In Ontario, the overwhelmingly most popular province among this demographic, it’s increased by 3.1 times.2
The pandemic thrust academic institutions into a space where they were forced to operate outside the confines of their campuses, turning to online lectures and collaboration over group video calls as a temporary fix. In the wake of this shift, students made one thing made clear: existing digital solutions could not replace the experience of being in a classroom.
81% of the 105,000 students surveyed in the 2021 QS International Student Survey believed that tuition should be discounted if courses remained partially online. Students felt that online learning was a lower-quality product and were excited about returning to the classroom.
Not having eye contact with a teacher matters. Not having your peers beside you matters. Not having a hands-on experience matters. And, from an international student perspective, not having a cross-cultural experience matters. Students clearly want to be back in classrooms, but is it the classroom they miss, or the co-experience and tactility of learning?
The Benefits and Costs of XR in the Classroom
Education researchers are hopeful that an immersive VR experience could offer students the collaboration and tactility they desire, without forcing them to gather in the same physical space. Instead of having to assemble in one lecture hall, the only barrier to entry would be a VR headset and an internet connection.
XR also offers a unique benefit to international students—the ability to start an international education in their own country before heading overseas.
By building an engaging experience that gives students everything they want from an in-person lesson, institutions can close the gap between virtual and in-person learning, increasing the number of students that could participate in a given program.
3D simulation in shared environments can improve the number of people who are taught by a teacher and the efficacy of a lesson. While the upfront costs of building these sandbox environments is significant, ranging from $20,000 to $100,000,3 the potential to significantly drive down long-term costs can make the investment one worth looking at.
VR is the most cost-effective way of learning when it’s done on a large scale. At 375 learners, VR training achieved cost parity with classroom learning. At 1,950 learners, VR training achieved cost parity with e-learn. At 3,000 learners, VR costs become 52% less than a classroom.4
Building a single, immersive learning experience that’s endlessly repurposable with no incremental cost, yet is still individualized. That’s a large part of what XR brings to the table. But in order for this solution to truly add value, it needs to be applied in the right setting. Let’s parse through what those settings are.
The Most Promising Use Cases for XR
The way in which we approach knowledge transfer is beginning to shift. The job of a teacher is transforming from the role of lecturer to learning guide. Schools that are thinking about how they can implement instructional practices that can make knowledge transfer quicker, more engaging, and more efficient, will be the ones that maintain a competitive edge.
XR can help facilitate this shift. But it needs to be piloted in the right use case. In order to justify the cost and early adoption risks associated with taking such a big leap, XR needs to be implemented in subjects where it can provide students with a truly unique experience.
A rule of thumb followed by instructors at Harvard is to use XR for experiences that otherwise would be too dangerous, impossible, counterproductive (for example, cutting down trees to learn about the effects of deforestation), or prohibitively expensive—what the guide refers to by the acronym DICE.5
While research and development teams work towards refining XR into a scalable solution for schools and small classrooms like the one at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, it’s important for institutions to start thinking about the best ways they could leverage this technology.
VR and XR should not be looked at as a replacement for the classroom, but rather as a tool to enhance the experience and accessibility of education for targeted groups of students.
Even if schools are questioning the prospect of taking the leap into XR, surveying students to understand how receptive they would be to such a shift, and introducing more immersive and collaborative learning opportunities into their programs, can help schools understand how this tech could add value.
If schools are proactive, they’ll already have their toes in the water when the tech is ready for them to use.
Considering What Matters to Students and Employers
One of the most important aspects of an educator’s job today is engagement. How do you keep students engaged and motivated throughout a semester? If a student isn’t paying attention, the structure of a lesson doesn’t matter.
While XR can provide powerful, emotional experiences for students, it also has a tangible educational benefit—instilling an increased sense of competence and motivation. It captures students’ attention.
There’s been a lot of research conducted on the best way to construct XR learning environments for students. Understanding how to support learning goals by harnessing the power of meaningful, engaging, socially interactive, and joyful contexts will transform flashy digital experiences into truly educational ones that are anchored by social interaction.
The big question underpinning all of this research is, “What are the most important skills for students to learn that will set them up for post-graduation success?”
A range of education stakeholders (educators, L&D researchers, employers) reached a consensus that success in the workplace of tomorrow will require mastery of a suite of six skills. Those skills included communication, collaboration, critical thinking, content, creative innovation, and confidence.6
The “6 Cs” offer a checklist of what students should take away from their higher education experience.
Of course subject matter expertise is important, but with the increasingly non-linear nature of career paths, setting up students for success requires educators to look beyond subject matter and consider how their content can assist students in their broader, multi-layered professional lives.
By placing students in a lesson that encourages them to problem-solve in an environment simulating real life, educators are giving them space to practice the dynamic situations they will face in life after school. Not only does it provide students with a baseline level of these core skills (6 Cs), it gets them excited about learning.
A recent study found that using VR to take university students on a virtual field trip to Greenland to learn about climate change produced higher interest, enjoyment, and retention than simply watching a video.7
The metaverse is not a replacement for teachers. Instead, it’s a tool with which teachers can spark learning and social interaction in new ways.
Adopting a VR-Positive Mentality Before It Becomes Scalable
Pre-pandemic, technology really didn’t change education norms. We had YouTube, AR, VR, and other forms of tech available to us, yet most classrooms still stuck to the structure that they’ve been using for centuries. So, how do we get schools to embrace XR and metaverse? They need to see it in action.
That proof of concept is underway. So far in 2022, we’ve seen a number of schools take the plunge into XR. In April 2022, 10 US universities partnered with Meta to open digital twins of their campuses, or “metaversities,” to offer an alternative to class via video call. The Meta-funded project is part of a US$150 million investment in virtual learning by the tech giant.
ApplyBoard partner schools University of Kansas and California State University are among the 10 schools participating in the Metaversity project.
The Pros, Cons, and Results of XR Classrooms
A metaversity is an immersive virtual reality platform where remote faculty and students don VR headsets and meet synchronously as they would on a physical campus. In some cases, the virtual campus is a digital replica of the institution in which they are enrolled. In other cases, the technology is deployed in face-to-face classes.
Skeptics of XR as a learning tool question the ethical dilemmas associated with allowing private companies to license this technology. Other concerns have stemmed from how low bandwidth and battery issues might impact the student experience, as well as the difficulty of reading interpersonal cues from students in XR environments.
While growing pains figure to be inevitable with any new product, students seeking flexible options may still find metaversities to be an irresistible improvement over remote, 2D screens that are known to induce “Zoom fatigue.”
A recent study found that 40% of VR learners were more confident in applying what they’ve been taught and 150% more engaged. In addition, VR was found to be 400% faster than classroom-based learning.
The good news is that we’re beginning to collect data that can help settle these arguments. In February of 2021, Morehouse College piloted a proof of concept metaversity which taught XR courses in history, biology, and chemistry.
“More than any learning innovation I have been involved with, Morehouse in the Metaverse has made the biggest difference for the students I teach,” said Dr. Muhsinah Morris, associate professor at Morehouse College.
Students enrolled in the VR history class posted a 10% increase in GPA relative to those taught the same subject via Zoom and face-to-face the previous year. Just as important, VR students reported an increase in satisfaction, engagement, and feelings of achievement relative to traditional and online delivery methods.
Keeping up with Change
Colleges and universities around the world are courting a new type of student: the non-traditional student. This learner often has significant work and family responsibilities and is in need of flexible options. They have multiple distractions and need to be captivated.
This student, along with traditional students, may find value in an immersive remote learning option that doesn’t feel like a downgrade from an in-person lesson but instead makes learning come alive.
Even if you don’t consider yourself ready to seriously explore new delivery methods, it’s a productive exercise to stay informed about how to set your future students up for success.
It’s important that during this time, while extended reality learning experiences are being built, educators, scientists, and developers co-construct meaningful and engaging opportunities. These collaborations can not only change the trajectory of a student’s life, but expand access to education at scale.
Here are a few things for schools to keep in mind as they try to stay ahead of the curve:
- Ask your students. Facilitate internal surveys to understand if XR delivery methods are something that interests them and gets them excited about learning.
- Look into the long-term cost benefits of implementing XR. Does the expansion of class sizes and payoff in student engagement justify the implementation costs?
- Talk to staff and alumni about what the best use cases for XR could be at your institution. Can it add an extra layer of value over current delivery methods?
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FOOTNOTES:
1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2. Data courtesy of Statistics Canada, Canadian and international tuition fees by level of study.
3. VR Vision, VR & AR Application Development Costs Explained
4. The VR Advantage, PwC, June 2021.
5. Harvard Graduate School of Education, An Introduction to Learning in the Metaverse, April 2022.
6. Brookings Institution, A whole new world: education meets the metaverse, February 2022.
7. Makransky, G., Mayer, R.E. Benefits of Taking a Virtual Field Trip in Immersive Virtual Reality: Evidence for the Immersion Principle in Multimedia Learning. Educ Psychol Rev
