Easily applicable social virtual reality and social presence in online higher education during the covid-19 pandemic: A qualitative study

Social virtual reality (social VR) platforms gained popularity among users over the last few years. They provide users with a sense of social presence, potentially stimulating social interaction in distance education. Insights on how VR enhances the social aspects of learning are scarce, however, and past examinations often focused on the effects of short usage times of self-developed VR learning applications. To analyze the potential of a simple-to-apply off-the-shelf social VR environment in distance education, in this qualitative study, a sample of 35 master's students employed the AltspaceVR platform for university seminars and group work over a six-week while campus access was restricted due to the covid-19 pandemic, and 23 of them were interviewed to examine their perception of the technology. The results show that social VR facilitated feelings of social presence, a more natural and spontaneous way of communicating with peers and teachers, and an increased sense of community in the classroom, compared to the alternative of videoconferencing. Participants reported high acceptance of the technology for teaching and learning tasks, particularly for interactive activities (e.g., workgroups) in small groups, but also identified limitations related to aspects such as image resolution, lack of note-taking tools, or the feeling of dizziness and fatigue after prolonged use. These results highlight the potential advantages of social VR for stimulating the social dimensions of online education, as well as the remaining challenges that need to be addressed to enable its use in higher education.