Formation of Educational Motivation and Thinking in Students by Means of Virtual Reality

Abstract

The work is aimed at studying the effectiveness of the influence of virtual reality training programs on the formation of educational motivation and thinking among students in the study of higher mathematics. The materials of an empirical study obtained on a sample of 1st and 4th year students of the Russian Technological University MIREA are presented. The study included 3 groups: one experimental group and two control groups. In group 1 (experimental), participants were offered to work in the VR program “Second-order Surfaces”, in group 2 — to read a textbook on this topic, group 3 was offered to relax between the two stages of the experiment. The study (N=90) involved respondents aged 17 to 21 years, of which 23.33% were female. The method of group alignment is applied. The study included 2 measurements of knowledge of the theory of linear algebra on the topic “ Second-order surfaces “(before and after working in the program/textbook reading/rest) and 2 measurements of the current state according to the SAN methodology. The results obtained suggest that working in a virtual reality program for the formation of thinking is as effective as reading a textbook. At the same time, there was an improvement in the overall condition of respondents after working in the VR program: the effectiveness of students increased. A further survey of students using the methodology for diagnosing students ‘ learning motivation (A.A. Rean and V.A. Yakunin, modifications by N.Ts. Badmaeva) showed an increase in educational and cognitive motivation among students working in the VR program.