Portfolio
Ask VR - Scenario-based Learning
AskVR is a virtual reality experience designed to help users learn about question-asking. We help learners do this by teaching them to focus on when to ask the question.
- Project Type: School project
- Audience: International Chinese graduate students who have little or no exposure to American-style higher education environments
- Tools Used: Adobe XD, Microsoft Document, Storyboard, Jam Board
Needs Analysis
The problem: Chinese graduate students attending American universities tend to have stronger linguistic and academic skills in English than their undergraduate counterparts, yet they still face challenges while pursuing their advanced degrees. One particular challenge is participating as frequently in class as their American classmates. American classrooms strongly encourage participation—discussions, questions, comments–during class, but the cultural differences between American and Chinese classrooms make it difficult for these graduate students to respond to this encouragement. The class size in China tends to be larger, and the structure is more lecture-based with students asking questions at the end of class or through a designated representative. Moreover, the concept of forbearance plays a role in how Chinese graduate students decide whether to engage during class. The literature identifies forbearance as the culturally specific decision-making behind help or expressing needs. Target learners expressed concern about asking for help from classmates and their professors to avoid disturbing them (Xiong & Zhou, 2018). While these cultural concerns loom large in the minds of Chinese graduate students, they express a desire to participate more in the American classroom. They often struggle with how and when to do so.
To better understand the cultural differences impacting our target learner, our team interviewed 4 Chinese graduate students studying a variety of fields at UNC-Chapel Hill. We interviewed 2 women and 2 men. These graduate students were in their first year of graduate study at the university.
Storyboard
After completing our needs analysis, our team creating a storyboard to visualize our target learner, the learning problem, and the concepts and tools worth exploring to respond to our target learner’s problem. In the storyboard, we begin with the character, “Fei Fei,” who is an international graduate student from China with no prior experience in American-style classrooms. Fei Fei is shown with many questions in mind, but anxious about how to articulate these questions aloud. Her major concerns stem not from a language barrier or the content of her question, but rather, when to ask these questions. As emphasized in the needs analysis, much of knowing when to ask a question in a social setting can be culturally determined and bound by certain cues, pauses, body language and more.
Prototypes and Testing
We conducted two rounds of prototypes, each followed by a user testing session. We have included prototype visualizations (one is annotated), testing session descriptions, main findings, and revisions.
Prototype 1: We used a paper prototype for Testing I. We took photos of main features of our paper prototype and created an annotated slide show, then created a video.
Prototype 2: We used a revised paper prototype for Testing II. Above, we converted our paper prototype into digital form and created a video of the main features.
Our Team
We are the AskVR Team. We met through the UNC Chapel Hill MEITE program. We began working together in Dr. Ryoo’s EDUC761: Design of Emerging Technologies for Education course. United by our experiences and/or interests in language education, we formed our group. Our collaboration and prototyping have particularly helped us grow in thinking about the cultural experiences of learners.
