An Empirical Study On Immersion Learning Environment Promoting The Development Of Middle School Students' Spatial Reasoning Skills

Spatial reasoning skill is an important cognitive ability.It plays an important role in both life and educational subject areas.Many studies have shown that spatial reasoning skills are closely related to educational subject areas.The international community has gained attention to the cultivation of spatial reasoning skills,and some countries have adopted curriculum reform to strengthen the training of spatial reasoning skills.Therefore,to enhance learners' academic achievements in multidisciplinary fields and equip them with basic skills for future social development,they need to receive education and training related to spatial reasoning skills.However,the importance of spatial reasoning skills in school education has not been paid enough attention to.Most traditional schools still use two-dimensional media presentations to conduct teaching.This approach may inhibit the development of learners' spatial reasoning skills and the understanding of the spatial reasoning process.Traditional teaching is also constrained by the lack of conditions(such as technical tools)to cultivate spatial reasoning skills.It is urgent to adopt more suitable teaching tools and an innovative teaching environment to develop spatial reasoning skills.The development of emerging technologies has changed the ways of traditional education,and also provided new ways to support the training of spatial reasoning skills.How to effectively use new technologies as cognitive tools and cultivate learners'spatial reasoning skills through school education has become an important research topic.Immersive technology with stereoscopic 3D images and physical motion offers immersive experience and instant feedback for the learners,thereby making the teaching experience related to spatial reasoning skills more immersive and interactive.Moreover,the widespread application and increasing availability of immersive technology in the education field makes it feasible and increasingly important in supporting the development of spatial reasoning skills.Spatial reasoning skills are plastic and can be improved through education(learning)and training,while immersive technology has potential advantages in supporting spatial reasoning skills.Therefore,this research mainly explores the impact of the immersive learning environment constructed by immersive technology(virtual reality technology)on the development of spatial reasoning skills of middle school students.Specifically,the main research questions of this study include the following three:(a)What are the key elements for the development of spatial reasoning skills?How does immersive technology affect and facilitate the spatial reasoning process?(b)Spatial reasoning skills are significant in the field of school education,so how to design and construct an immersive learning environment for the development of spatial reasoning skills?(c)What is the effect of immersive learning environment design on the development of spatial reasoning skills?Can it improve learners' spatial reasoning skills and academic performance?To answer the above research questions,firstly,this study synthesizes the understanding of the concept and composition dimensions of spatial reasoning skills and extracts the four key elements required for the development of spatial reasoning skills:(a)visualization and presentation;(b)navigation;(b)mental rotation and transformation;(d)identification,composition and decomposition to guide the development of spatial reasoning skills in the school education environment.Then,based on the characteristics of immersive technology,the advantages of developing spatial reasoning skills are analyzed.In the process of spatial reasoning,the"immersion" and "conceptual" characteristics of immersive technology can help learners visualize the mental cognitive processes involved in the process of "mental understanding",helping them to successfully "see" spatial information,and provide a real-world sensory experience.The "interactivity" characteristic of immersive technology can further help learners to practice the behaviors or ideas involved in the"physical transformation" process of spatial reasoning,and promote the presentation and connection of their external spatial information and internal conceptual representations.Secondly,this research builds based on several theories,combined with the characteristics of immersive technology and the development elements of spatial reasoning skills,to construct an immersive learning environment design model for the development of spatial reasoning skills.The design elements required by the model include design principles,learners,learning situation,learning content,and learning activities.Furthermore,using this design model,two teaching cases were designed,namely the "Ceramic Art and Production" course based on the Head-Mounted-Display(HMD);and the "Bronze and Oracle" course based on zSpace.Finally,to verify the effect of immersive learning environment design oriented to the development of spatial reasoning skills,this study adopts a mixed research method to conduct empirical research on the above two cases.The results show that:(1)An immersive learning environment oriented to the development of spatial reasoning skills has a significant impact on the improvement of spatial reasoning skills.This learning environment can significantly improve the spatial reasoning skills of middle school students,and its three sub-dimensions:mental rotation,spatial orientation,and spatial visualization.Interview results also show that immersive courses can present threedimensional objects and help learners better learn the appearance of three-dimensional objects and structural characteristics;(2)The learning environment can significantly improve the self-perception of spatial reasoning skills of middle school students;(3)In this learning environment,learners' learning performance(academic performance,flow experience,and experience activities)are significantly improved,the environment also helps to reduce the cognitive load;(4)Personalized characteristics have no significant differences in spatial reasoning skills and self-perception.According to the above mentioned,the research conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Immersive technology,especially virtual reality,can be used as an effective cognitive tool to cultivate spatial reasoning skills,which can influence and promote the spatial reasoning process of learners;(2)Constructed an immersive learning environment design model for the development of spatial reasoning skills that aims to develop spatial reasoning skills,uses immersive technology as an intermediary,and integrates learners,learning situation,learning content,and learning activities;(3)The learning environment can effectively develop learners' spatial reasoning skills,improve academic performance,and reduce cognitive load.The innovation of this study includes two aspects:(1)From the perspective of the educational needs of learners who need to cultivate spatial reasoning skills,the key elements of the development of spatial reasoning skills are proposed,and the learning environment model for development of spatial reasoning skills is designed.The design model enriches the new perspectives of studying spatial reasoning skills in the context of immersive learning environment,and expands the understanding of the relationship between immersive technology and spatial reasoning skills;(2)Provides empirical evidence for the adoption of immersive technology in school class to develop learner'spatial reasoning skills.