VR as an Innovative Learning Tool in Sports Education

Abstract

Testing and application of suitable learning tools and methods can facilitate learning environments conducive to skill acquisition for the target group. This also applies to sports education at school level, including extracurricular activities. On the one hand, traditional learning methods are still effective in sports education; on the other hand, keeping up with societal and technological developments, new learning strategies are continuously being researched to complement existing pedagogical tools. An innovative tool that has been increasingly used in various fields of application in recent years is Virtual Reality (VR) as part of the Extended Reality (XR) domain. It enables learning in immersive and specifically designed learning environments and is particularly suitable for learning in (sports-)motor contexts due to its flexible use. In our study, we test a VR-based rotation task in an extracurricular dance class with the objective of supporting the crucial didactic, collaborative, and perceptual components of dance training in educational contexts. We conducted feedback sessions with the students and used direct observation to examine their behavioural actions. Based on the qualitative content analysis of the written feedback and the overview from the observations, we can identify integrative potentials of this innovative tool in sports education, especially extracurricular dance classes.