Abstract
This study examined the use of an immersive virtual environment (IVE) in decreasing intergroup anxiety among university students. In Dinner-time360 , the students engaged in an interpersonal encounter by sharing a virtual dinner table with someone from another linguistic or cultural group. A control group watched the documentary in a traditional 2D format. The re-sults showed that the documentary reduced intergroup anxiety in both situa-tions, particularly among students with high anxiety who engaged in the IVE. For the IVE viewers, the decrease in intergroup anxiety was connected to two interpersonal elements: perceptions of the character’s immediacy and an in-creased level of homophily. These findings provide insights into the possibil-ities of IVEs in multicultural learning among university students.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 202-220 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning |
Volume | 16 |
Issue number | 16 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 23 Aug 2021 |
Publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- multicultural learning, intergroup anxiety, interpersonal communi- cation, immersive virtual environment, parasocial contact
- 390.00
Publication forum classification
- Publication forum level 1