Incidental Learning and Virtual Worlds

• Author / Creator

  Thomas, Wayne W

• This study sought to determine whether or not students could learn textual and pictorial information incidentally within virtual worlds and investigated whether or not other factors such as learning style or digital literacy predicted incidental learning. The study also investigated whether visual salience played a role in incidental learning. The study utilized a quasi-experimental design, and its participants were 155 undergraduate students from the University of Alberta enrolled in introductory educational psychology. The results indicated that in addition to incidental learning taking place in virtual worlds, learning style and digital literacy seemed to predict incidental learning in some instances. The results also suggested that visual salience played a role in incidental learning as the participants performed better on the information that was made visually salient. These findings have implications for schools that may want to use a virtual world to set up a classroom or a learning space for students.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Digital Literacy
  • Incidental Learning
  • Learning Styles
  • Salience
  • Virtual Worlds
  • Visual Salience

• Graduation date

  Fall 2013

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Education

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3G10J

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.