The Effects of an ARCS-Based Immersive Virtual Environment for Cooperative Learning on Students’ Learning Effectiveness, Motivation, and Cooperative Behaviors

Abstract With the rapid development of personal computers and the Internet, there is growing interest in leveraging technology to support collaboration and cooperative learning. However, conventional cooperative learning methods often lack real-time monitoring and personalized guidance from teachers, which can result in suboptimal learning outcomes and poor cooperation quality. While the immersive virtual environment has shown promise in various domains, its application in education, especially in cooperative learning, remains underexplored. This study aims to address this gap by integrating ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction) strategies into a secondary school geography curriculum, using cooperative learning strategies supported by an immersive virtual environment. A quasi-experimental design was employed, with 70 middle school students from eastern China participating in activities within an immersive virtual environment. The results demonstrated that the immersive virtual environments-based ARCS instructional strategy significantly improved students’ academic achievement, motivation for cooperative learning, and the quality of their collaborative interactions. Furthermore, the study explored the cooperative learning behaviors of high-achieving and low-achieving students, recording and coding their behaviors within the immersive virtual environment. The findings revealed that high-achieving students exhibited stronger self-regulation compared to their low-achieving peers, who may require additional learning scaffolding for better engagement and performance.