Spatial Abilities in Virtual Environment's Learning Spaces

The recent three-dimensional virtual environment applications of Virtual Reality have a strong impact on the way the users interact with computer-generated spaces and on the role of the computer as a supportive tool and as a mediator for learning, as well. The researchers in the field of Educational Technology are content to build conceptual frameworks to study the cognitive representations formed by the students in this new technological platform and the students' knowledge acquisition. Moreover, they provide the students with virtual environment applications for learning in various domains. Such an approach to the study of learning is presented here, concerning the investigation and evaluation of factors that seem to be important and particularly decisive for the spatial perception. The learners were engaged with specific tasks inside an interactive 3D virtual space modelled using desktop virtual reality technology for learning. The experimental processes that were designed provided our research team with useful data and first conclusions for further research.