An Exploratory Study on the Impact of Collective Immersion on Learning and Learning Experience

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the impact of a collective immersion on learners’ engagement and performance. Building on Bandura’s social learning theory and the theory on the sense of presence, we hypothesise that collective immersion has a positive impact on performance as well as cognitive, emotional and behavioural engagement. Ninety-three participants distributed in four conditions took part in the experiment. The four conditions manipulated the collective and individual dimensions of the learning environment as well as the high and low immersion of the learning material. The two conditions that offered a high immersion setting used two types of the novel immersive dome: a large one for collective immersion and a small one for individual use. All participants were presented with the same stimuli, an 8-min-long video of a virtual neighbourhood visit in Paris in the 18th century. The participants’ reactions were measured during and after the task. The learning outcome, as well as the cognitive, emotional and behavioural engagement, were measured. Final results showed that collective immersion learning outcomes are not significantly different, but we find that collective immersion impacts the cognitive, emotional and behavioural engagement of learners.