School Adaptation Virtual Reality Simulation for Preschoolers: Implementation and Formative Evaluation

Abstract

Preschoolers' entrance to elementary school marks a major change in their lives, which may cause difficulties in adjusting to school, such as anxiety and refusal to attend. Accordingly, there is a need for school adaptation content for preschoolers before entering school. We developed a VR game that provides a classroom experience simulation with four different tasks for preschoolers before entering school. We conducted a formative evaluation on the game with 16 participants (5 males, 11 females, mean age: 22.25) of different ages to measure usability, presence and cybersickness. The results indicated that the game has adequate usability (SUS score: 80.88/90; PSSUQ mean: 3.44), with some issues related to quality of instructions, clarity of the user interface, and technical issues. Moreover, most of the participants were able to sense presence (involvement mean: 5.87; adaptation/immersion mean: 6.16), but 43.7% of them reported symptoms of cybersickness. The results of the study play a pioneering role in future work on development of immersive school adaption interventions. Therefore, the study can be of interest to researchers, developers and teachers who are interested in the area.