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Seaver College Professors Explore Impact of Content in Virtual Reality as a Pedagogical Tool


In December 2021, Seaver College professors Steven Bauer, Sarah Fischbach, and Alice Labban, Seaver College student Emilie Fleck (’ 21), and former Genesis Lab employee Anna Mauldin Speth published an article in Marketing Education Review. The article, entitled “Virtual Reality or Reality: Content is Always Key to Enjoyment, Understandability and Comprehension,” presents a new approach to bringing virtual reality into the marketing classroom.

As virtual reality has become an increasingly popular marketing tool, it has become equally important to incorporate into marketing curriculum. Bauer, Fischbach, and Labban spent two years testing two different types of virtual reality content with students to engage and teach in the area of global marketing.

“VR is especially suited to global marketing, since success in the area depends on understanding foreign individuals and environments which are not easily accessible to domestic marketers,” the study shares.

The researchers showed students two different videos, and the participants watched the videos in either VR or Non-VR format. The study’s findings indicated that while students who watched the videos in VR experienced a higher level of enjoyment, there was “no significant difference in content understandability and comprehension.”

However, the study found that the video deemed “more enjoyable” also had higher content understandability and comprehension scores.

“We thus extend the VR literature in the education area…by showing the importance of VR content as a variable influencing VR learning outcomes,” the study states. “With the growing number of VR videos available to educators, content exploration is an important process in building positive student learning.”

The research team is continuing to collaborate with Pepperdine University’s Genesis Lab and is expanding into building educational VR content to be tested.

To read the full study, visit Marketing Education Review.