The Combination of Serious Gaming and Immersive Virtual Reality through the Constructivist Approach: An Application to Teaching Architecture
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- (1)
- Is it possible to use Leonardo da Vinci’s notes to build exploratory and interactive IVR-SGs?
- (2)
- How does the virtualization of Leonardo da Vinci’s projects manage to combine the constructivist approach with serious games to disseminate Leonardo’s thought in architecture and urbanism?
- (3)
- Is the IVR-SG application of Leonardo’s drawing designs immersive?
- (4)
- Does the IVR-SG that recreates Leonardo da Vinci’s projects enhance the students’ sense of presence?
- (5)
- Were the interactions offered within the world of Leonardo da Vinci perceived positively?
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1. IVR Features
- Immersion plays a crucial role in the creation of an experience perceived positively by users and can be declined according to two meanings [4].
- ○
- Physical immersion represents the user’s involvement within the VE and, more specifically, the degree to which physical reality is excluded from the user’s perception [5].
- ○
- The mental immersion sense of presence is the experience by the subject of being in one place or environment, even when physically located in another (Witmer & Singer, 1998).
- Interactivity can be defined as the degree to which a user can modify VE in real time [6].
- Imagination triggers the human mind’s capacity to perceive and imagine non-existent things in a creative sense. In short, VR technology is well suited to conveying complex abstract concepts due to its visualization abilities [3].
2.2. Learning Paradigms
2.3. Serious Game
- Pre-design: In this phase, the goals and the general learning objectives are defined, with care given to the correctness of the educational content.
- Design: This is articulated in the construction of the storytelling, characterized by the freedom of action of the user, the experiential learning, and the progressive increase in the level of difficulty of the interactions.
- Evaluation: The application must be tested in two dimensions: knowledge acquisition and usability.
2.4. Perception of IVR Technologies in Education
3. Methodology
- (1)
- The selection of Leonardo da Vinci’s urban projects. The aim is to collect all the information about the single project and understand how the multidisciplinarity is declined.
- (2)
- The definition of the storyboard. We combine the constructivism paradigms with the SG design of the IVR application in this design phase.
- (3)
- The design and development of the app. In these application steps, we realize the 3D model and subsequently develop interactions.
- (4)
- The evaluation. Here, we structure the questionnaire and administer it to the primary school classroom to detect the effectiveness of the application.
3.1. The Urban Projects of Leonardo da Vinci
- The architectural approach is used to interpret and give truth to the drawings in the dimensions and statics of the object and understand the project’s feasibility.
- The historical approach is used to contextualize the project and define the elements that Leonardo does not make explicit. In the descriptions that remain, there is only a description of the architecture, and there are no hints of the elements, materials, and objects; so, a historical filter is needed to avoid false history and to provide the user with a historically correct perception.
- The engineering approach is used to understand the dynamics of the operation within the project.
3.1.1. The Ideal City of Canals (“Città Idealdei Canali”)
3.1.2. The Ideal City on Several Levels (“Città Ideale a Più Livelli”)
3.1.3. The Clean Stable (Polita Stalla)
- The highest floor is divided into five naves; in the central nave, wider than the others, the hay is stored, while the two lateral ones are reserved for stablemates, and the most external ones are used for the distribution of rations to the animals.
- A large arched window on the back wall brings the straw from the ground floor. We find the designed machinery used to carry the straw up to the floor in the sketch.
- The middle floor is divided into three naves of the same dimension. The horses are on the sides, and the center is for the stablemates.
- The lower floor has been divided into two parallel tunnels, each of which ensures the outflow of equine manure.
3.2. Storyboard
Learning Paradigms
3.3. Serious Game
3.4. Design and Development of the App
- In the first introductory video, Leonardo introduces his projects in the first person and explains what will happen next. In this case, we decided to create a 360-degree video that makes the users understand that they have a 360-degree view; so, the sketches of Leonardo’s projects that appear are developed over the whole x-axis.
- In the second video, Cecilia, the woman with the ermine, introduces us to the IVR world.
- After these two videos, Cecilia explains how to move in the VE through some of the tasks.
- Finally, after acquiring these notions, the users are ready to begin their journey through time, immersing themselves in the first of the three projects: Ideal City of Canals; Ideal City on Several Levels; Clean Stable (Figure 7).
3.5. Evaluation
4. Results
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Telepresence | Affordance | Perceptive and Cognitive Ergonomics | General Self-Efficacy | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mean | 4.04 | 3.79 | 4.09 | 3.59 |
Median | 4.14 | 3.80 | 4.14 | 3.70 |
Mode | 4.00 | 3.60 | 4.29 | 3.50 |
Standard Deviation | 0.51 | 0.64 | 0.56 | 0.58 |
Variance | 0.26 | 0.41 | 0.32 | 0.33 |
Asymmetry | −0.97 | 0.15 | −0.47 | −1.26 |
Kurtosis | 1.11 | −0.97 | −0.10 | 2.20 |
Minimum | 2.57 | 2.80 | 2.71 | 1.70 |
Maximum | 4.86 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 4.50 |
Telepresence | Affordance | Ergonomics | General Self-Efficacy | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Telepresence | 1 | 0.007 (0.970) | 0.105 (0.548) | 0.346 * (0.041) |
Affordance | 1 | 0.487 ** (0.003) | −0.088 (0.613) | |
Ergonomic | 1 | −0.132 (0.450) |
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Capecchi, I.; Borghini, T.; Barbierato, E.; Guazzini, A.; Serritella, E.; Raimondi, T.; Saragosa, C.; Bernetti, I. The Combination of Serious Gaming and Immersive Virtual Reality through the Constructivist Approach: An Application to Teaching Architecture. Educ. Sci. 2022, 12, 536. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12080536
Capecchi I, Borghini T, Barbierato E, Guazzini A, Serritella E, Raimondi T, Saragosa C, Bernetti I. The Combination of Serious Gaming and Immersive Virtual Reality through the Constructivist Approach: An Application to Teaching Architecture. Education Sciences. 2022; 12(8):536. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12080536
Chicago/Turabian StyleCapecchi, Irene, Tommaso Borghini, Elena Barbierato, Andrea Guazzini, Elena Serritella, Tommaso Raimondi, Claudio Saragosa, and Iacopo Bernetti. 2022. "The Combination of Serious Gaming and Immersive Virtual Reality through the Constructivist Approach: An Application to Teaching Architecture" Education Sciences 12, no. 8: 536. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12080536