You-Zhen Lin

Secondary Research

**Interaction for International Students**

_{Interaction with domestic students can bring some benefit to international students. However, international are less motivated to interact with domestic students.}

_{The immersion and realism in VR world make people more confident with facing unfamiliar environments.}

_{Users generally perceived non-verbal communication as positive in social VR experience because it affords more immersive and embodied interactions for body language}

Knowledge Gap

Can non-verbal communication in training VR world help international students feel more confident in interacting with domestic students?

Aim and Research Questions

Aim

To examine the effect of confidence and emotions from international students in the UK to interact with domestic students in virtual reality world.

Research Questions

What is the affect of international students’ social interactions with domestic students in a VR virtual world on confidence and emotional reactions?
How immersive and realistic is the VR virtual world to help international students interact with domestic students?

Prototype Development Process

Step1. Interview

Cultural differences created a barrier in their communication with British students.

Participants felt a bit of uncomfortable when speaking English to British students.

Participants were all willing to practice speaking with British students much more and get more knowledge about British culture though they did not have many chances.

British culture participants would like to understand: opinions about working or studying, sports, foods, history, music, and small talk.

Step2. Ideation – MoSCoW

Step3. Prototype

_{Characters with gestures}

_{Characters without gestures}

Task

_{Participants had to do the conversations with 2 characters in VR world – British classmate and British staff}

Flow

Evaluation Methodology

Result

The Effect on Emotional Reaction

Emotrak – Quantitative Analysis

For the participants with low level of confidence in interacting with British students and high level fo experience in VR virtual world, dynamic characters are more interesting for them, while it was normally distributed and not significantly different in general.

Interview – Qualitative Analysis

The Sense of Presence

SUS – Quantitative Analysis

For the participants with high level fo experience in VR virtual world, dynamic characters are more immersive and realistic for them, while it was not normally distributed and not significantly different in general.