Action Research Proposal

INTRO

Virtual reality has the ability to alter the way we understand and interact with our surroundings. I’m interested in looking at how VR drawing may affect student’s perception and understanding of space within the drawing classroom. In essence, observational drawing consists of perceiving and translating information from actual space into a flat space, and I would like to find out if VR drawing may have a positive impact on how students make these connections.

QUESTION

Does virtual reality drawing (in actual space) help students better understand the perception and translation of space on a 2-dimensional page?

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

There is quite a bit of research on virtual reality and its connection between various disciplines; however, I have not found anything addressing the specific question about the connection to observational drawing. According to Águeda Simó“in his article The Virtual Reality Art Installation Endocytosis: Evolving from a Flat Land into a Three-dimensional World, “Virtual Reality is an ideal platform for exploring spatial effects because of their ability to combine stereo imaging techniques and interactive real-time graphics”. Exploring space (both optical and actual) is a major goal of Drawing 1, so there are overlapping themes between the two platforms that are very intriguing to study. My work would help to fill these gaps within literature that currently exists on the topic of virtual reality.

METHODS

I will first need to administer a pre-assessment to my students to gauge their drawing abilities prior to their VR drawing experience. This pre-assessment will take place within the first 3 weeks of the Spring 2019 semester. After this time, I will have a solid understanding of the students drawing abilities, as well as their rate of progress so far in the course.

After the 3rd week, students will meet in the Virtual Reality room in the Digital Scholarship Lab at Michigan State University to draw in virtual reality for one class session. This activity will allow students to engage their entire bodies, and actively move through space while creating their drawings.

As class resumes as normal, I will make observations about how/if the VR drawing experience impacted the quality or accuracy of their  2-dimensional drawings. We will discuss as a class to see how the different drawing experiences impacted or affected one another. We may even go to the VR room at a second time in the semester to see if that provides any additional ways of understanding and translating space.

CONSTRAINTS

This study will occur within the constraints of my STA 110 Drawing 1 course in Spring 2019. Because there are only 18 students enrolled in the course, it is a fairly small sample from which to determine conclusive results. The students will likely come from a variety of backgrounds and levels of experience with drawing, which may also sway the findings. Students with less drawing experience may demonstrate more growth throughout the duration of the course than students entering the class with a high level of skill. The pre-assessment will be necessary in determining growth for all students in the class, leading to more accurate results of the VR study.

RESULTS

I’m interested in determining what, if any, connections exist between the translation and perception of drawing through virtual reality and on a 2-dimensional plane. If there is a positive connection between the two, I would expect to see a noticeable improvement of accuracy and depiction of space within my student’s observational drawings after week 4. If there are no noticeable differences after week 4, it’s possible that either the students need more time with VR drawing, or there is no noticeable connection between the two activities.

OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION

STA 110 is a class based on observational drawing, so students will be building these skills throughout the semester. I expect all students will demonstrate growth, so it may be difficult to determine if the VR experience played a major role in the amount of growth or not. I think an additional survey or discussion with students to hear their thoughts about the experience will be helpful in knowing the full impact of the study.