An Exercise to Introduce Virtual Reality to Sociology Undergraduates

Abstract

Current virtual reality (VR) headsets like the Oculus Quest 2 offer an unprecedented depth of active immersion into digital environments, and instructors can curate virtual experiences for students that integrate and illustrate sociological concepts. The exercise summarized here introduces students to using VR in a sociology class on mass...

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Details

Subject Area(s):

Communication and Information Technologies, Mass Communication/Public Opinion, Social Organization

Resource Type(s):

Class Activity

Class Level(s):

Any Level

Class Size(s):

Any

Usage Notes

Please see submission for full usage notes. 

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. 1. Acquire more familiarity with and increased facility using VR equipment.
2. 2. Actively engage with concrete applications of sociology course materials in VR. Examples here include digital twins, remediatization, and impression management.
   
3. 3. Gain experiential vantage points on new technological affordances. As an example, solely reading about working remotely in VR-based offices is abstract; inserting students into actual VR-sited meetings provides them with an experiential basis for better understanding the advantages and limitations of this technological affordance.
   
4. 4. Spark the sociological imaginations of students to consider broader potential consequences of the nascent metaverse on various social behaviors.

Goal Assessment(s):

1. 1. Students gain greater familiarity and facility with VR equipment as a natural product of the exercise. To monitor that experience further, during the exercise, the faculty member and two teaching assistants queried students about their experiences with the technology while also teaching them how to operate the headset, controllers and navigate...
2. 2. The instructor asked students questions on the midterm examination about some of the course materials illustrated during the VR exercise.
3. 3. The instructor asked students to discuss their experiences during the exercise and in subsequent classes. For example, the instructor and teaching assistants asked participants about their impression management while using avatars in VR-based meetings.
4. 4. Students engaged in class discussions about the potential social consequences of the metaverse.
5. 5. While not required, the instructor also offered students an option of analyzing VR’s potential societal impacts as a final paper topic.