ORUN-VR2: a VR serious game on the projectile kinematics: design, evaluation, and learning outcomes

Virtual reality (VR) offers possibilities for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education by facilitating the understanding of abstract concepts. In this work, we designed, developed, and tested an immersive VR serious game—ORUN-VR—to engage students and to improve their understanding of the Physics concepts related to the projectile kinematics. User-based experiments, knowledge and usability tests, engagement and presence evaluations, screen capturing, and statistical analysis were performed to obtain and analyse data from over 130 high school students that have played ORUN-VR. Knowledge tests indicated an overall learning gain of 52% for the students who played in comparison with those who did not, with differences between men and women. Game engagement and presence VR were positively evaluated. The effects of game engagement, presence in VR, and gender on the learning outcomes are discussed. Our results showed that ORUN-VR can be a valuable immersive VR environment to support learning in projectile kinematics.