Education researchers caution that immersive VR, like any technology, may be perfect for some kinds of learning and superfluous, or even counterproductive, for others. Studies of immersive classroom VR are still scarce. But emerging evidence suggests that one of VR’s biggest strengths is its ability to tap student emotions, notably empathy and the can-do confidence known as self-efficacy.
The power of VR to stoke empathy is the focus of research at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, led by communications professor Jeremy Bailenson. In the lab’s “Empathy at Scale” studies, people who inhabit avatars of a different race in a virtual world later score lower in tests of subconscious racial bias, and young people who “wear” an elderly avatar are then more inclined to save for retirement. Charities, including the International Red Cross, have made VR films to counteract “compassion fatigue” and boost donations.
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