Investigating the Role of Virtual Reality to Support Community Engagement

Virtual Reality (VR) interfaces are known to provide users with immersive experiences to support tasks such as training or developing an understanding of topics in various domains. However, research relating to using VR to learn about unfamiliar settings and supporting attitudes towards these settings, particularly through lower-cost VR technology is limited in nature. In this article, we describe an exploratory study to investigate low-cost VR technology use on attitudes toward community engagement activities. We selected the issue of homelessness, due to the prevalence of this issue in the city where the study took place. We focused on the experiences of conducting community engagement activities as part of the study. Ten participants experienced becoming homeless through an immersive VR application. In order to investigate the impact on attitudes, a community engagement instrument along with perspective-taking subscale were presented to participants prior to and after the VR experience. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences in both the attitude and behavior subscales, suggesting a positive change in intention to participate in their community and to make a difference based upon the VR experience. Implications from the work relate to the design of a procedure which can be used by educators and researchers alike, to determine the attitudinal impacts of VR environments, along with providing awareness of the benefits and practicalities of utilizing low-cost VR technologies within a classroom environment.