Development and Validation of Virtual Reality Scenarios to Improve Disability Awareness among Museum Employees

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article explores the potential of VR scenarios in instilling awareness of disabilities to the masses. The findings of user testing and interviews show that VR scenarios can perform such tasks. However, the responses may indicate some usability issues that may hinder from being performed. 

There are also some issues in methods as the procedure of user testing is not clearly discussed in terms of the conversation between avatars, whether it happened inside or outside VR, which must be stated due to the sense of presence in the environment.

Some other feedback is embedded in the article.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor grammatical errors and missing brackets detected.

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Summary of Paper:

The paper presents the creation and validation of two virtual reality (VR) scenarios designed to enhance disability awareness among museum employees and people with disabilities (PWD). The study involved five PWD and seven museum employees who experienced VR scenarios simulating a museum visit by individuals with low vision or using a wheelchair. The participants were interviewed to assess the realism and usefulness of the scenarios, identifying themes such as emotions, experience, usefulness, and realism. The authors conclude that VR can be a valuable tool for promoting disability awareness and inclusion in sociocultural settings.This work is suitable for the chosen venue, has been conducted fairly robustly, and has a reasonable contribution. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of a breakdown on how the different elements of the VR scenarios were designed. They appear to be quite well considered but it’s not entirely clear how this was approached. There is also some room for improvement with how their methodology is reported (detailed below).

 

Summary of Contribution:

This paper has a strong contribution to the field of disability awareness training by demonstrating the potential of VR as an effective and engaging tool. It provides knowledge on how VR scenarios can simulate both physical and social barriers faced by PWD. The findings suggest that these VR scenarios can effectively enhance museum employees' understanding and empathy towards PWD, potentially leading to more inclusive practices in museum settings. The contribution could be improved through presenting some more high level design implications of the work, what lessons can practitioners and researchers alike take forward from this work? 

 

Issues:

The paper mentions the use of a VR headset but does not specify the model. It is essential to clearly state the exact model used, potentially the Oculus Quest. This detail is crucial for reproducibility and understanding the technological context of the study.

 

The authors need to provide more detailed information on how the interview process informed the design of the scenarios. Was this informed by speaking to experts? PWD? Or based on the author's own knowledge. More detail is needed here. 

 

I’m still slightly unclear on the process that was used to analyse the interview data, no prior work has been cited to indicate the approach used, there is a missing reference to Miles 2014, that could potentially be to their methods book on qualitative analysis, but even then that book details numerous approaches, it’s unclear what one was employed by the authors here. 

 

It is unclear how the interview questions were derived. The authors should elaborate on the theoretical framework or literature review that guided the development of these questions. This addition will strengthen the validity of the research instrument.

 

The discussion section would benefit from being broken down into more specific subsections.

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx