Jennifer Preece

Alina Striner, Jennifer Preece

Environmental citizen science frequently relies on experience-based assessment, however volunteers are not trained to make qualitative judgments. Embodied learning in virtual reality (VR) has been explored as a way to train behavior, but has not fully been considered as a way to train judgment. This preliminary research explores embodied learning in VR through the design, evaluation, and redesign of StreamBED, a water quality monitoring training environment that teaches volunteers to make qualitative assessments by exploring, assessing and comparing virtual watersheds.

Alina Striner, Jennifer Preece

StreamBED is an embodied VR training for citizen scientists to make qualitative stream assessments. Early findings garnered positive feedback about training qualitative assessment using a virtual representation of different stream spaces, but presented field-specific challenges; novice biologists had trouble interpreting qualitative protocols, and needed substantive guidance to look for and interpret environment cues. In order to address these issues in the redesign, this work uses research through design (RTD) methods to consider feedback from expert stream biologists, firsthand stream monitoring experience, discussions with education and game designers, and feedback from a low fidelity prototype. The qualitative findings found that training should facilitate personal narratives, maximize realism, and should use social dynamics to scaffold learning.