Teaching Hypsography Through Virtual Reality: Enhancing Terrain Understanding in Geography Education

This study examines the effectiveness of teaching hypsography through a collaborative immersive virtual environment. An instructional lesson and a custom application called Contour Lines were developed for both immersive virtual reality and non-immersive desktop formats using the eDIVE software platform. A total of 212 high school students participated, with one group learning in the immersive environment and the other in a more common classroom setting—working with the desktop application. While learning outcomes were similar across groups, the results highlight the experiential benefits of immersive technologies, particularly telepresence and task involvement, rather than immediate performance gains, as well as the role of individual learner differences.