The Impact of Immersive Virtual Reality on Cognitive Load and Learning Biological Reactions: Exploring Elemental Interactivity in Lesson Design for Virtual Reality

By Payton Walters

Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) presents new avenues for educational integration, presenting opportunities to create worthwhile learning experiences. Virtual Reality can be more immersive from the use of head-mounted displays to emulate real-world experiences (Norman, 2008). Research on using IVR in education is growing, calling for a balance between the lesson’s content and virtual experience to enhance student learning without overwhelming them.

The study’s framework focuses on Sweller’s cognitive load theory (CLT) and the concept of elemental interactivity. For low elemental interactivity, cognitive processing of elements is done independently from the others, suggesting a reduced cognitive load even with multiple elements to learn. High elemental interactivity is dependent on the interaction between elements, increasing the working memory load (Sweller, 2010). The research aims to create and explore the effects between two IVR lessons differing in elemental interactivity on cognitive load when learning biological enzymatic reactions.