Analysis of the Effect of Applying VR Technology in Cross-Cultural Art Course

Abstract

Objectives: In today's world, with the continuous deepening and development of human-cultural interactions, the process of communication and interaction between different cultures is becoming closer and closer. From domestic cross-regional cultural studies to transnational cultural studies, corporate management, and talent acquisition, to national strategies and cultural exports, the importance and practicality of cross-cultural communication is becoming increasingly evident. Due to the growing trend of globalization, the global communicative nature is becoming more and more prominent. In response to the needs of society, several colleges and universities across the country already offer cross-cultural arts programs. The cross-cultural Arts Program is a course that combines theory and practice. The traditional teaching model of cross-cultural art courses is teacher-centered, textbook-centered, and board-based. Time-consuming, laborious, small information capacity, information display form is rather dull and monotonous. And the traditional teaching mode of cross-cultural art courses has a single means and rarely involves modern teaching equipment, which is not conducive to broadening teachers’ and students’ horizons and improving teaching efficiency. This paper takes “virtual reality technology” as the core and proposes the teaching mode of “virtual reality combination” and “online and offline combination” for the practical course. The purpose is to solve a series of problems of the traditional teaching model and provide reference experience for the development and reform of other practical courses. This study uses virtual reality technology to enable students to learn more about cross-cultural art theory and understand the similarities and differences between different cultures, and achieve the purpose of “combining online and offline” and “virtual reality” teaching modes.

The cross-cultural art program is a science that studies and utilizes the relationship between art and culture and information dissemination, analyzes and summarizes various cross-cultural communication phenomena, and explores the communication and exchange between different art cultures. At the same time, cross-cultural art is highly practical, and it plays an important role in both domestic interregional and transnational cultural studies. Cross-cultural art teaching is a sunrise course, and the traditional teaching mode is mainly based on offline mode. Teachers and students conduct field research, but field research is also more limited in terms of space to meet training needs. The theoretical courses are based on teachers teaching basic knowledge, the course content is fixed, the teaching method is single, and students are not highly motivated. With the advent of the epidemic era, the offline teaching mode of cross-cultural art courses has been greatly impacted and influenced. The areas are closed due to the epidemic, and students face great risks and obstacles in their field research to meet the needs of the course objectives. At the same time, because offline field research is expensive and costly, it cannot meet the learning needs of students from different family backgrounds, and students from different cultural backgrounds have different ideas and concepts about cross-cultural art communication. In the face of the epidemic era, the different cultural backgrounds of students and the influence of their living environment, it is a question worth thinking about how to make cross-cultural art teaching play a better educational role.

Combine the virtual reality technology with the teaching process, through three-dimensional virtual simulation and virtual interactive technology to virtually show the site scenes, practice processes and results required for the course, and truly reproduce the practice process. The teaching mode of using virtual reality technology combined with the curriculum can enhance the real-time interaction between teachers and students, enrich the teaching content, overcome the equipment as well as the venue environment obstacles of the traditional practical teaching mode, and further improve the teaching quality. At the same time, the mode of combining virtual reality technology with the course brings students a different course experience in a new way, overcomes the obstacles of field research, brings students visual enjoyment, further stimulates students’ interest in learning and improves learning efficiency. Therefore, the teaching mode of “virtual reality combination” can better overcome the obstacles of traditional teaching mode such as equipment and venue, and improve the quality of teaching and learning. It allows students to gain a deeper understanding of the learning content and perfectly integrates the presentation of visual effects with professional knowledge, cultivating technical and intellectual talents with high overall quality.

Methods: In this study, 20 students (10 males and 10 females) were randomly selected as the control group and 20 students (10 males and 10 females) were selected as the experimental group in a school in China. There were no major differences in basic information between the two groups, and both students had taken cross-cultural arts courses and had a preliminary understanding of cross-cultural arts programs. The control group used the traditional teaching mode, and the experimental group used virtual reality technology for teaching. A questionnaire survey on learning interest and attitude will be organized after the teaching.

Results: By comparing the teaching questionnaires of the control group and the experimental group, it can be found that the students in the experimental group were more motivated, more active in learning, and more satisfied with the class than the students in the control group. Students in the control group reported that the classroom content was boring and their participation was less active, while students in the experimental group reported that the classroom content was rich and interesting and their participation was higher. Therefore, it is hoped that more courses will be taught in this pedagogical way.

Conclusions: This study found that traditional teaching courses do not fully meet the learning needs of students, and practical courses require students to conduct more field research, and the use of virtual reality technology combined with traditional teaching can better and more effectively solve these problems and improve the quality of teaching as well as learning efficiency. The combination of virtual reality technology and cross-cultural art courses can help students better experience different cultures around the world, improve students’ learning efficiency and increase their interest in cross-cultural art courses, as well as reduce the physical and financial pressure brought by field research and the hindrance of field research in the era of epidemics, and more effectively improve teaching efficiency. In addition, there are some issues that need to be noted. Most schools have very few virtual reality resources developed for teaching, and the shortage of curriculum resources is the biggest bottleneck for the promotion of virtual reality technology in some schools. However, with the rapid development of virtual reality technology, the future application of virtual reality technology in teaching is bound to bring about disruptive changes in classroom teaching methods. However, more experiments and research are needed on how to better use virtual reality technology in classroom teaching.

W. Wu and Y. Liu—These authors contributed equally to this study