Real Benefits of a Second Life: development and evaluation of a virtual psychology conference centre and tutorial rooms
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Psychology Learning and Teaching
Volume 10 Number 2 2011
www.wwwords.co.uk/PLAT
Real Benefits of a Second Life:
development and evaluation of a virtual
psychology conference centre and tutorial rooms
CHRISTINE P. DANCEY, ELIZABETH ANN ATTREE,
JOAN PAINTER, MEGAN ARROLL & CHRIS PAWSON
University of East London, United Kingdom
GEMMA McLEAN
Gemixin Ltd, United Kingdom
Second Life (SL) is an internet-based virtual world launched in 2003 by Linden Research Inc. A free
downloadable program enables its users to interact with each other via avatars (i.e., a computer user’s
representation of him- or herself), in virtual simulations of real-world environments. Thus far there
have been few studies which evaluate the effectiveness of SL in learning and teaching environments.
The aim of this project was to create a virtual conference centre and dedicated tutorial huts within SL
which would provide psychology students with the opportunity to participate in additional academic
tutorials, and also allow them to present the findings of their empirical projects at a virtual conference.
This paper reports on the process of building and teaching within the virtual school, and the
subsequent evaluation. Forty-three students attended virtual tutorials and a further 27 gave a virtual
poster presentation within SL. Feedback was very positive, showing most students liked SL for
tutorials, found them fun, and wanted more SL in their degree. Students enjoyed presenting in a virtual
environment and liked the anonymity when interacting with others. Attending SL tutorials was also
found to have a significant effect on students’ assessment performance, even when controlling for
general ability and engagement with IT-based module resources. It was concluded that the benefits of
SL to the learning of students involved in this project outweigh the disadvantages.
The discipline of psychology has long placed great emphasis on the acquisition of research skills by
both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Consequently, a great deal of time and effort is
dedicated on all psychology degree programmes to teaching students to appreciate the importance
of performing research, and to understand the relevant methodologies and analytic techniques
available.
It is perhaps, however, debatable whether enough attention is given to developing the skills
needed to disseminate the students’ research effectively at conferences, to the wider research
community. Of course, in many instances student presentations are included as a form of
assessment, in order to provide some experience of this particular research skill. Nevertheless, it is
questionable how similar this experience is to presenting at a professional conference, and it is also
undoubtedly the case that students find the experience extremely daunting and stressful (Sander,
Sanders, & Stevenson, 2002). One possible solution to these problems is to provide students with
the opportunity to present their work, either as poster or paper presentations, at a virtual
conference hosted within Second Life (henceforth SL), which would potentially be a safer, less
threatening environment than a real conference, as the student would be anonymous (an
assumption which we would test by student feedback).
107 http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/plat.2011.10.2.107Real Benefits of a Second Life
SL is an internet-based virtual world launched in 2003 by Linden Research Inc. A free
downloadable program, it enables its users to interact with each other via avatars (i.e., a computer
user’s representation of herself or himself in a virtual simulation of a real-world environment.) An
individual can make their avatar look like themselves, or totally different. The individuals chooses a
name for their avatar from a list within SL – which means avatars can be totally anonymous. If an
individual wishes to disclose their real-life (RL) name, they can do so by typing this into a ‘profile’,
which can be visible to other avatars by simply clicking on the other person’s profile. Avatars
communicate either by text, via the keyboard, or by voice. Text or voice can be seen or heard by
any avatar within close proximity; if an avatar wishes to speak in confidence to another avatar, they
can do so quite easily.
Currently SL is used by approximately 150 universities in 13 countries, and in the United
Kingdom higher education sector, increasing numbers of academic entities are creating a presence
within SL (Kirriemuir, 2008). It has been estimated that by 2011 80% of internet users will
participate in virtual worlds (Gartner Research, 2007).
The majority of the literature accumulated thus far tends to focus on the potential benefits
and pitfalls of teaching in these environments, and suggests strategies for successful deployment.
For example, Wood, Solomon, and Allen (2008) observe that the ability to create real-life
simulations offers the opportunity to enhance experiential learning in a risk-free environment, thus
enabling students to practise the skills they are attempting to acquire and learn from their mistakes.
Consistent with this idea, Antonacci and Modaress (2005) created a virtual medical clinic in which
students could practise their patient-encounter strategies. The ability of SL to offer the experience
of risk-free ‘off-campus’ learning locations is undoubtedly seen as one of its greatest advantages.
A further advantage of SL which has been commented on frequently in the literature is the
importance of a sense of co-presence in the development of online communities. Co-presence is
defined as, not simply the sense of ‘being there’, but as the sense of ‘being there with others’, and
research suggests that avatar-based social interactions lead to higher levels of co-presence than do
phone or chat interactions (Bente, Ruggenberg, & Kramer, 2005). This enhanced sense of presence
is said to foster an increased sense of community (Childress & Braswell, 2006) and facilitate
collaboration (Gronstedt, 2007). SL, therefore, would seem to offer the opportunity for
incorporating highly collaborative learning-based activities into the syllabus.
Notwithstanding the advantages of SL, concerns have also been raised. Wood et al. (2008)
observe that the lack of natural body language and facial expressions can make it difficult for the
instructor to determine if the students understand the constructs to which they are being
introduced. Stott (2007) highlights the cost of developing and maintaining virtual environments,
and ensuring that computers on campus are powerful enough, as a potential stumbling block.
Similarly, time and effort has to be invested by both students and staff in order to ensure they are
sufficiently technologically adept to use the system. Finally, members of the academic community
have also voiced concerns regarding legal and ethical considerations, given that SL contains a great
deal of mature content which students may find inappropriate (Bugeja, 2007).
Thus far there has been relatively little formal evaluation of the effectiveness of SL in blended
learning teaching environments. Recently, however, Cobb, Heaney, Corcoran, and Henderson-
Begg (2009) conducted a study in which students carried out a polymerase chain reaction
experiment in either a SL or a non-SL demonstration group. The results indicated that both groups
showed a learning gain. However, students in the SL group required significantly less demonstrator
assistance during the subsequent real-life practical. Thus, it is possible that the simulation
experience SL provides can be used to enhance experiential learning by allowing students to
practise new skills and ideas and learn from their mistakes in a safe and secure environment.
The aim of this study was to create a virtual school within SL and evaluate its pedagogical
utility. The school provided students with the opportunity to participate in SL tutorials relating to
third year undergraduate content, and also to participate in a SL psychology conference by
presenting a poster based on their empirical work.
108Real Benefits of a Second Life
Creating the Virtual School of Psychology
Professional virtual world development company Gemixin Ltd was brought in to undertake the
development. The virtual conference centre and tutorials were within SL, based on the project
specification that had been established in consultation with the research team.
A large, modern two-storey blue-glass virtual building was developed on a vacant plot on the
University of East London’s main SL island, complete with a garden area and an outdoor section
for tutorial huts. The ground floor was split into a reception area, two poster rooms, two breakout
rooms and toilets, including a disabled toilet. The latter was not of course because we believed we
needed functionality, but because we wanted to be inclusive and to make disability visible. It is for
this reason that, as well as a staircase in the reception area, we created working lifts to allow transit
to the first floor. We included useful information in this area and also an interactive receptionist
character. The poster rooms came complete with poster boards that allowed images (posters) to be
placed on them, a refreshments area and seating. The breakout rooms were set up in a boardroom
fashion with interactive whiteboards to allow group discussions. The glass walls became opaque at
the touch of a button to allow for privacy when needed. The first floor contained three conference
rooms with one large room and two smaller rooms. All three spaces were designed to look like real
conference facilities with seating, slideshow boards, video screens and a podium, as well as
refreshment areas. The outdoor area was decorated with benches, flowers and trees, and featured a
fenced area with three tutorial huts. In order to increase the fun aspect of our centre, we included a
ginger cat that walks around the buildings, is able to be petted, and who will purr and meow, and
sometimes follow the avatars.
The next stage was to create user guides for both staff and students which explained how to
use the facilities. The guides also provided links to other resources that would be useful for general
SL skills such as navigation and using the interface. The guides explained how to upload posters to
the boards, attend virtual conferences and tutorials, upload slides to the slideshow boards, and
other information that was relevant to the facility. An interactive training session was also provided
for both staff and students by Gemixin Ltd, to introduce them to the basic concepts of SL.
A short video was created to showcase the project, which can be found at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pdzuSo3epA. We publicised a training day to all staff and
students on our virtual learning environment and noticeboards. All staff and students had access to
our SL resources in our virtual learning environment. Although all the students presenting their
research posters in the conference were known to us to be University of East London students, staff
or visitors to the conference would not know the real identities of the students (unless they chose
to disclose this information). Likewise, it was not possible for the tutor to know the identities of the
students.
Study 1: Tutorials
Participants
Forty-five students attended various SL tutorials aimed at supporting their grasp of content
delivered in lectures between March and May 2010.
Procedure
All students were emailed, giving details of virtual tutorials (e.g., name of lecturer and topic, times
and dates). Tutorials were held outside of the working week, so that students could participate
without having to be on campus. The tutor avatars held the tutorials, and when finished, directed
student avatars to feedback posts placed outside the tutorial huts – the link on the posts led to a
new webpage where students were asked to rate their agreement with 10 statements (see Table 1
below). We also included the following statement: ‘We are interested in your views of the
experience of taking part in our SL tutorials. Please write as much as you want on the experience,
and let us know how you think we could improve it’. Thirty-two students rated their agreement on
the statements, and further comments were given by 22 students and analysed qualitatively.
109Real Benefits of a Second Life
Results
Quantitative analysis. It can be seen in Table 1 that, although some items were rated as neutral by
most students, the vast majority of students agreed that tutorials in SL were fun, that they suited
them better than real-life tutorials in terms of the freedom to engage from their computer at home,
and they also liked the anonymity of SL.
Table 1. Feedback from students taking SL tutorials.
Statement Disagreed Neutral Agreed
SL tutorials suit me better than real-life (RL) tutorials 4 4 24
I like the anonymity of tutorials in SL 3 4 25
It’s fun having tutorials in SL 0 2 30
SL tutorials save me time because I can participate from home 0 4 28
I would have learned more in an RL tutorial 13 13 6
I like the social aspect of SL 3 12 17
I would like to be in the audience at an SL conference 1 9 22
I would like to present a poster at an SL conference 7 17 8
I would like to present a paper at an SL conference 8 16 8
Technical problems with SL are likely to prevent me using it again 22 7 3
Three of the SL tutorials were affiliated with a particular undergraduate Level 3 Political
Psychology module. In order to evaluate the academic impact of the tutorials, the attendees’ (n =
43) final exam performance on this module was compared with the exam performance of those
students who did not attend SL tutorials (n = 46). Table 2 shows the mean final exam mark for
those students who attended none, one, two or three of the SL tutorials.
Table 2. Mean exam performance by number of tutorials attended.
Number of M final SD n
tutorials exam mark
attended (/40)
0 18.61 10.39 46
1 21.70 6.25 10
2 27.00 4.29 15
3 30.83 9.76 18
A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to test for differences on the final
multiple-choice exam scores between those students who attended none, one, two or three of the
SL tutorials. The ANOVA revealed a significant effect of SL tutorial attendance on final exam mark,
F(3, 85) = 10.36, p < .001, partial η² = .27. Planned Bonferroni comparisons revealed that those
students who attended two SL tutorials performed significantly better (p = .008) in the final module
exam than those who did not attend any tutorials. Furthermore, those who attended three tutorials
performed better than those who attended none (p < .001), or those who attended only one (p =
.047).
An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to assess the difference between the SL
attendance groups, while statistically controlling for general ability as measured by coursework
mark, and for general engagement with learning resources as measured by number of visits to the
virtual learning environment. The ANCOVA revealed that, although the coursework mark (F(1,
83) = 60.40, p < .001), and visits to the virtual learning environment (F(1, 57) = 12.08, p = .001),
both covaried with the exam mark, the SL tutorial attendance effect remained significant when
these independent measures of academic ability and engagement were taken into account, F(3, 85)
110Real Benefits of a Second Life
= 2.85, p = .042, partial η² = .09. Those students who did not attend the tutorials performed
significantly less well in the final exam than those who attended two (p = .025), or those who
attended three (p = .022), SL tutorials.
Qualitative analysis. In addition to the quantitative questionnaire, respondents were asked to give
open-ended written feedback regarding their experience of the SL and tutorials. To analyse the
comments provided, a descriptive phenomenology approach was taken (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003). As
opposed to interpretative methods, which position the researchers’ views and beliefs as an
important aspect of the analysis, descriptive methods attempt to present findings as a ‘true’
representation of the participants’ experience, limiting (as this cannot be completely eliminated) the
influence of prior expert and lay knowledge as well as theory. Within Giorgi’s descriptive method,
a process of data reduction and transformation into distinct structures of experience is achieved
(Giorgi, 1997).
To begin this process, all the comments were carefully read and coded on the basis of the
descriptive content individually, to maintain their uniqueness, context and linear association
(Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003). Subsequently, these codes were grouped into ‘meaning units’ (Giorgi,
1997) and, finally, the meaning units were reduced into thematic structures, supported by direct
quotations.
Benefits of SL as a Teaching Environment
The specific benefits cited by the students were grouped into two themes, namely social and/or
personal benefits, and practical benefits. Within the former theme, respondents liked the fact that
the environment allowed them to interact with fellow students:
This is great thanks, a great way of chatting to other students! It was great once I got the hang of
using the avatar. It was really useful and would definitely like to attend a lecture like this!
Not only did the SL tutorials encourage peer support, but they also seemed to help the less
confident students envisage an environment in which they would feel comfortable and relaxed:
I love this if I could do a presentation in here instead of in real world settings my confidence
would be better and I would get my point across more clearly.
Even for the more confident students, the anonymous nature of SL encouraged greater
engagement than would have been achieved in a real-life setting:
The best thing with this whole idea is the fact that people are anonymous giving more courage
to speak and ask and participate. I am not a shy person but I have to admit that I am much more
active in SL than in RL. And I hope that this will continue. Just a note: My friend was sitting next
to me the whole time and praying that his lectures would be the same as SL.
As well as the personal and social benefits of a virtual reality environment for tutorials, there were
practical advantages, such as the ability to attend an academic session from the student’s home:
I think it saved a lot of time because we can work from home; we just need to sort out technical
problems somehow.
Also, students who had missed lessons were able to get up-to-date with material they had missed
without the need for additional, scheduled lessons:
Really useful!! I managed to catch up with the info that I missed from the face to face lessons
through SL.
In sum, it appears that the flexibility and anonymity provided by SL benefited the students in
academic tutorials.
111Real Benefits of a Second Life
Disadvantages of SL as a Teaching Environment
The feedback was not wholly positive; approximately one-third of the respondents stated that they
had technical problems in the form of sound, speed and/or internet connection. Some of the
tutorials did not use sound/speech and this affected the pace of the session:
The sound didn’t work so my tutor had to type things in and that slowed everything down.
Similarly, another student commented that ‘it was fun. Pity there’s no voice though,’ which
illustrates the importance of rapid communication with this virtual environment. Even when
sound was available, testing this technology was time consuming:
It would be good to have 15 minutes before the start of the session to test sound for people as we
spent 20 minutes testing people’s sound.
The quality of the sound was also inconsistent for some users:
I don’t know if it’s my laptop or SL itself but the sound quality when a person speaks can’t be
heard clearly. So I might have been missing certain points which then makes me lose focus.
Another problem that arose concerned the students’ home hardware, in the sense that computers
can crash, which means the participants had to miss some of the session to restart their devices:
I really enjoyed it! However, it was really slow for me to type. And I kept having system failures
... it kept shutting down ... so I had to restart it soooo many times! But overall it was cooool!
One final issue cited by the respondents concerned the distracting visual presence of other
members of the group. The avatars can move in a number of different ways, including walking,
running, flying and physical gestures such as reaching out. They can also sit down on seats or on
the virtual floor, and one student would have preferred if there had been some direction from the
tutor to avoid the visual interference of other avatars:
Wish people would learn how to sit down as it is distracting when people keep flying around the
room or stand in front of the avatar.
Overall, even when respondents mentioned a negative aspect of using SL as a teaching tool, they,
without exception, also stated that they thought it was useful and/or an enjoyable way to hold a
tutorial.
Study 2: The Virtual Conference
Participants
Twenty-four second-year students and three members of academic staff attended our virtual
conference.
Procedure
All staff and students within the School of Psychology were invited to attend a conference in SL as
delegates. Second-level students, who were required to submit a poster relating to their module
(the Psychology of Physical Illness) as part of their assessment, uploaded their posters onto the
poster boards within the conference centre. Student presenters positioned their avatars by the
posters for one hour during the conference, to interact with and/or answer questions from the
delegates. The students taking part in the conference had not taken part in the SL tutorials.
Feedback was collected from the 27 delegates (both staff and students) and student presenters.
All of the presenters were psychology students, but staff avatars also included staff from the School
of Health and Bioscience, and one person from the University of Leeds. Feedback logs were
installed in SL in the form of poles which were positioned at the entrance to the conference
building. As some of the statements were not relevant to particular people (e.g., ‘I enjoyed
presenting’ only applies to student presenters) an option of ‘not applicable’ was given on the
feedback form. Participants were asked for their views of the experience of taking part in our SL,
112Real Benefits of a Second Life
and how they thought it could be improved. Eighteen people wrote comments in this section, and
these were analysed qualitatively.
Results
Quantitative analysis. It can be seen from Table 3 that the vast majority of students liked presenting,
enjoyed seeing other students’ posters, found it fun, and thought SL should be used more in their
degree course. As in the feedback from the tutorial group, these students also liked the anonymity
of SL.
Table 3. Feedback from participants in SL conference.
Statement Disagreed Neutral Agreed n/a
I enjoyed presenting a poster in SL 2 5 17 3
I like the anonymity of presenting a poster in SL 3 4 19 1
It’s fun having a conference in SL 2 8 17 0
Other avatars showed an interest in my poster 5 7 11 4
I showed an interest in others people’s posters 1 7 19 0
I would have learned more in a real-life conference centre 4 15 8 0
I would like to present in SL again 1 12 9 0
I enjoyed seeing other people’s posters 0 4 23 0
SL should be used more in my degree programme 1 9 14 3
I learned quite a bit about physical illness from looking at the posters in SL 0 10 17 0
I found it difficult to navigate in SL 11 12 4 0
Technical problems with SL are likely to prevent me using it again 9 10 6 2
Qualitative analysis. In a similar vein to the qualitative feedback from the tutorial sessions,
numerous participants stated that the conference was ‘interesting’ and they would like to use the
environment more in the future:
This was fun I really enjoyed this, it could be used for lectures, which I think would be
interesting.
The reasons that the students cited for their positive reaction to using SL were identical to the
justifications given previously, namely the anonymity and security of being able to present work as
an avatar:
I think it was really good presenting the posters on SL as it meant that students were able to
present their posters without letting people know who they really are which is helpful for people
who are not so confident with presentations.
Again, the issue of confidence and anxiety were key to the participants’ evaluation of the event:
The best part about it was that I did not need to stand there and talk about my poster in person.
The avatar is a great idea and helpful, particularly for those who feel nervous to talk in front of
an audience.
However, not every respondent saw the virtual nature of the conference as a benefit:
It was an interesting way to present our work, and took away the anxiety and stress from doing
the conference in person. However I do feel I would have liked to have presented in person, as
feel I may have learnt more and interacted a lot more, as I was very unsure on how to use SL. It
was enjoyable, however being a person who preferred face to face interaction, this wasn’t really
my type of thing.
I had some problems with looking at other people’s posters. That aspect could be improved in
the future – maybe we could be given clear instructions on how to do it? Also we could be given
a longer time to present our posters and answer any possible questions. This session has been too
113Real Benefits of a Second Life
short. Also we had to stand with our avatars in front of our posters which meant that we
couldn’t go and look at other posters.
These suggestions could easily be integrated into subsequent SL conferences; however, there were
some additional user technical difficulties similar to the problems experienced in the tutorial
sessions.
It can be seen from the direct quotations above that, although the majority of students found
the method of presenting their work in SL to be positive, technical difficulties limited others’
experience.
Staff Comments
Members of academic staff from the Psychology, and Health and Bioscience, schools of the
University of East London and an academic from the University of Leeds also attended the event.
The only negative comment from this group concerned the difficulty in reading the print on the
posters:
Some posters very hard to read, made it hard work. Students did seem keen to pass the info on.
Enjoyed more talking more to Psychology academic staff new to SL. Could have been an
introductory video (short) to explain to newcomers that the posters were 2nd year and the
purpose. I enjoyed the experience.
However, some of the issues with reading the print appeared to stem from the viewers’ own lack
of experience with SL, rather than an integral problem with the technology:
It was really interesting to see all the posters although I struggled to read them at first, because I
am not confident in Second Life. However, I am sure I will improve if these are used more often.
I think the students have put a lot of hard work into these posters and they should be
congratulated.
One member of staff commented on the success of the event in terms of the novelty and relative
inexperience the students had with the technology:
I think it worked very well particularly considering most students only started using SL recently.
Chat crossover a bit of a pain but that’s SL for you – you get used to it. Also means you can
eavesdrop. Thanks a lot for experience – keep it up!
Again, even with the difficulties stated, every academic staff member stated that the conference
was a positive experience and they could see the benefit in using SL as a teaching and learning
environment.
To conclude the qualitative component of this study, it appears that both staff and students
enjoyed interaction in SL and would like to see it used more often, assuming that the
aforementioned technical difficulties can be dealt with satisfactorily.
General Discussion
The feedback from staff and students for both the tutorials and the conference was very positive.
There were no students in the tutorial group who participated in the conference, and vice versa,
meaning that students in the conference could not be influenced by their experience in the virtual
tutorials, and vice versa.
It is interesting that students who attended the SL tutorials were mostly neutral as to whether
they thought they would like to present at a SL conference. However, most students who
presented their work in the SL conference found the experience enjoyable, and over 70% said that
they liked the anonymity of presenting in SL, and commented that this helped students who were
not so confident. Although we did not measure confidence, we inferred that some students
believed themselves to be less confident, having mentioned that they liked the anonymity of
presenting and contributing to the tutorials. Students mentioned that they would be more
confident in presenting their papers at a real-life conference after the experience of presenting in SL,
thus confirming the work of Wood et al. (2008). This is possibly because, during the poster
114Real Benefits of a Second Life
conference, they were required to respond to visitors and other students who asked them questions
related to their poster. Although the defence of the poster was not a part of their formal
assessment, students nevertheless enjoyed explaining their work to other interested parties.
Moreover, many said that they had learned about the topics of chronic illness (e.g.,
Parkinson’s disease, chronic fatigue syndrome) during the conference, but we did not test whether
this was the case. This is something we will take into consideration in our future studies.
It is to be noted that, although most responders were neutral as to whether they would learn
more in a real-life conference, many agreed that they would learn more at a real-life conference
than a SL conference. This may have been because actually reading the posters was quite difficult
due to the large resolution of the original poster images, which often included large amounts of
small text, being resized by SL to fit the maximum image size of 1024 x 1024 pixels. The posters
were still quite readable, but required advanced camera navigation skills to be viewed clearly,
which many users did not have. One person suggested having a short video demonstrating how to
read the posters, and this is a suggestion which we shall be taking up for future conferences.
A minority of respondents found that technical problems were likely to mean that they would
not use SL again. Nine per cent of the tutorial respondents thought this, as opposed to 20% of the
conference respondents.[1] The difference is no doubt due to the way SL slows when too many
avatars are in one location, meaning that it is difficult to navigate around the conference centre –
particularly difficult because the posters were in two different rooms, meaning navigation was
necessary. For the tutorials, the avatars needed simply to be sitting in one location rather than
navigating. Also, there were more avatars in the conference centre than the tutorials.
Of course there are drawbacks to SL. The costs of developing SL, in terms of staff time and
external consultant costs, may seem prohibitive. For instance, to develop the SL conference centre
and buildings, user documentation, the digital video, and the interactive ‘chat bot’ (a program
designed to instigate conversation) receptionist (provided by Gemixin), was £4,000. The cost of
purchasing a full island in SL is at present (December 2010) £630, with a monthly fee of £185. Until
January 2011, Linden Lab offered a 50% educational/nonprofit discount, but unfortunately
educational organisations will now have to pay the full fee. Stott (2007) mentions not only the costs
of SL but the potential stumbling block of not having sufficiently powerful computers to run SL.
Academics also need to think about the ethical issues, which are not as simple as we might
imagine (Botterbusch & Talab, 2009; Bugeja, 2007). Although our virtual conference was very
unlikely to attract the attention of undesirable residents (e.g., avatars who like harassing or even
shooting other avatars), it is possible. Bugeja (2007) gives details of the way in which educators can
protect their students from dangers, and universities from litigation.
Feedback showed that many respondents were indifferent on many of the dimensions we
measured, since there tended to be higher numbers of students who checked the ‘neutral’ box
rather than agreeing or disagreeing. There was a minority of students who did not like SL.
Comments as to why this was included technical problems within SL, feeling giddy when
navigating, and having a headache due to SL.
However it is clear from the results that most want more SL in their degree programme, and
that in general they thought SL tutorials and conferences were a good idea, mainly due to the fact
that they could attend tutorials and conferences from home, and that the anonymity provided
allowed them to speak more freely in both the tutorial sessions and the conference. And – perhaps
an additional benefit – whether students were tutorial or conference responders, the overwhelming
majority found the experience fun.
Note
[1] For our December 2010 virtual conference, attended by approximately 60 people (not reported here),
no student reported technical difficulties. The second cohort of students had experience of SL before
their module began, and our computers had been upgraded.
115Real Benefits of a Second Life
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CHRISTINE DANCEY* is Professor of Psychology at the University of East London (UEL).
Christine has several publications in the area of learning and teaching, and is interested in the use of
the new technologies for teaching. Correspondence: Professor Christine Dancey, School of
Psychology, University of East London, Stratford Campus, Water Lane, London E15 4LZ, United
Kingdom (c.p.dancey@uel.ac.uk).
ELIZABETH ATTREE is the BSc Psychology Programme Leader and a principal lecturer at the
University of East London. Elizabeth teaches, and leads a module on, research methods at
undergraduate level. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Correspondence:
e.a.attree@uel.ac.uk
JOAN PAINTER studied undergraduate psychology between 1987 and 1990 at Goldsmiths
College, London. She then worked as a part-time lecturer at Goldsmiths whilst studying for her
PhD (1990-1994). In 1994 she took up a lectureship at UEL, teaching cognitive psychology and
research methods (1994-2000). Following various posts in other universities, Joan returned to the
School of Psychology at UEL in 2010 as a senior lecturer on the MSc in Applied Positive
Psychology. Correspondence: j.painter@uel.ac.uk
116Real Benefits of a Second Life MEGAN ARROLL is a visiting research fellow at the University of East London. She is currently involved in several projects investigating the use of Second Life in higher education and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Correspondence: m.a.arroll@uel.ac.uk CHRIS PAWSON is the Psychology Leader in Learning and Teaching and a senior lecturer at the University of East London. Chris teaches advanced developmental psychology at undergraduate and postgraduate level and leads modules on introductory and political psychology in the Schools of Health and Bioscience and Psychology. Chris is also a UEL teaching fellow and teaches on the MA in Learning and Teaching programme in the School of Education at UEL. Correspondence: c.pawson@uel.ac.uk GEMMA McLEAN is the Director and Lead Developer of Gemixin (http://gemixin.co.uk), a digital design and development company based in Coventry, West Midlands. The company offers a range of services for the design and development of virtual worlds, digital learning spaces, educational games and much more. Gemma graduated from Coventry University in 2008 with a first class honours degree in Multimedia Computing before starting the company. (gemma@gemixin.co.uk). *Contact author Manuscript received 19 July 2010 Revision accepted for publication 20 December 2010 117
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