College Students’ Perspectives and Attitudes Toward the Use of Gather in Online Classes

Abstract

Metaverse has been recognized as an educational platform in the field of education. This study aims to examine perspectives and attitudes of college students to the metaverse platform, Gather, in online English classes. A total of 36 college students participated in the study and completed a survey including demographic information, class satisfaction, and perceptions of Gather. The results showed that participants showed increasingly positive attitudes to Gather during four classes. In addition, students’ satisfaction gradually increased. The advantages of using Gather include interaction, virtual world, and group activities, and the use of avatars. The disadvantages of using Gather include being unfamiliar with the metarverse platform and technical functions. The results imply that metarverse can reduce learners’ anxiety and stress in language learning by providing a virtual world as it allows language learners to interact using online resources and avatars connected with the metarverse platform. Metaverse could play an important role in English education in the future as it can cope with the rapid changes caused by the 4th industrial revolution and non-face-to-face educational environments, although thorough class design is required for it to be successful.