Integrating spherical video-based virtual reality into elementary school students’ scientific inquiry instruction: effects on their problem-solving performance

Developing the problem-solving abilities of elementary school students has been recognized as an important educational objective. Science curricula, because of their practical and experimental characteristics, are thought to be an important way to develop students’ problem-solving ability. The use of Virtual Reality (VR) technology in teaching practices provides new possibilities for the development of problem-solving abilities by providing students with a richer situation, making the learning process more interesting and interactive, improving students’ motivation and attention, and helping them to discover and explore their own knowledge. In this research, we conducted a study on the use of exploratory scientific practice activities based on Spherical Video-based Virtual Reality (SVVR) in science classes, and verified the impact of such activities on the problem-solving abilities of elementary school students. The results show that integrating SVVR into exploratory scientific practice instructions has a significant effect on students’ learning outcomes and problem-solving abilities. The results also reveal that the integration of SVVR has different influences on students with different learning attitudes. Relatively speaking, students with poorer learning attitudes benefitted more from the scientific inquiry activity than those students with more positive attitudes.