Exploring the effects of immersive VR on learning outcomes and spatial understanding in digital heritage : A cross-cultural experiment

Sammanfattning

Immersive virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used in digital cultural heritage, yet existing research presents conflicting conclusions regarding its educational value, and little is known about how cultural background moderates learning outcomes. This study investigates the effects of immersive VR on learning outcomes and spatial understanding of historical architectural heritage compared to video-based presentation and examines whether cultural background influences these effects. A 2 × 2 between-subjects pilot experiment was conducted (N = 20), with media modality (VR vs. video) and cultural background (Chinese vs. non-Chinese) as independent variables. Participants learned about the Great Wall of China through either an interactive VR prototype or a muted documentary video of equal duration. Learning outcomes were measured immediately after exposure and again after a one-week delay; perceived immersion was measured using a Likert-scale questionnaire. Results show that VR significantly enhances perceived immersion across all participants. For immediate learning, VR outperforms video overall, but this advantage is driven primarily by culturally familiar (Chinese) participants. Notably, the VR-non-Chinese group demonstrated a significant improvement from immediate to delayed test (8.0 to 8.6, *p* = .044, Cohen’s *d* = 1.29), a delayed consolidation effect not observed in other groups. Information access preference (reading vs. listening) further interacts with VR effectiveness. These findings indicate that VR’s educational benefits in cultural heritage are temporally dynamic and culturally contingent: while VR can reduce learning gaps between cultural groups in the long term, immediate advantages depend on prior cultural schemas. The study contributes to digital heritage, human-computer interaction, and cross-cultural learning research by revealing delayed consolidation effects and the moderating role of cultural background and information preference.