Middle School Students Learn Binary Counting Using Virtual Reality

Abstract

Educational fields that are abstract in nature, such as computer science (CS) and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields may find alternative teaching methods useful to maximize student opportunities to internalize and process the curriculum. When designing alternative educational tools in virtual reality (VR) technologies, the objective is to expose an academically diverse population to CS in an engaging and immersive environment. With this objective in mind, we built and tested a CS educational VR experience, CSpresso, designed to teach students to count in a binary (base-2) number system. Testing confirmed that the student group who learned to count binary in VR were just as successful as those who learned from a certified CS instructor. This shows that VR educational experiences can be used as alternative teaching tools in CS education, which can supplement traditional teaching methods enabling new learning methods for students in the classroom and at home. We believe that this is evidence to support a larger effort in adapting the current CS education system to meet the needs of a more diverse student body that may find alternative teaching tools useful in internalizing abstract concepts.