The Effect of Learning Styles and Scaffolding Strategy on Students’ Achievement in a VR Learning Environment

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that non-native speakers immerse themselves in English-speaking countries, currently thought to be the most effective way for second language acquisition. Nevertheless, the majority of elementary school students in China cannot cover the cost of traveling to a country where the citizens generally speak English. Meanwhile, each individual has its own preferred way to acquire knowledge and retain information, which has been considered as a vital factor for personal performance. Thus, in this paper, a virtual reality game based on children’s stories for Chinese elementary students to learn English has been built. Moreover, an experiment has been conducted among fourth grade students by situating the experimental group in the virtual reality game under the guidance of specific learning goals, while the control group learned without any guidance using only the virtual reality game only. The experimental results show that: (1) the post-test score for all students was significantly higher than pre-test scores. (2) The post-test score for the experimental group was higher than the control group. (3) Compared with intuitive learners, the sensory learners tend to spend less time to finish the same task.