The Educational Usage of Virtual Reality Goggles – Stressor or Successor

The primary objective of this paper was to find out how completing a task in the metaverse using VR technology, as opposed to doing it in the real world, affects students. In addition, they wanted to find out if there were any differences between the genders. For this purpose, a two group experiment with pre- and post study questionnaires was conducted with 33 students from the University of Innsbruck and the Management Center Innsbruck. The participants were divided into two groups and had 15 min to solve a Sudoku puzzle with VR glasses or a tablet. To measure the experience, several questionnaires were filled out. These were used to record the workload, which was calculated using the standardized NASA TLX score developed by Hart S. (1986). The dimensions of “Mental Demand”, “Physical Demand”, “Temporal Demand”, “Performance”, “Effort”, and “Frustration” were assessed simultaneously. Subsequently, the results were differentiated between the two environments. It was found that the workload in both groups did not differ significantly. In the subscales, we can find a different situation. Particularly striking is the difference that emerged in physical exertion. With a significance of p < 0.001, this was much higher in virtual reality than in the real world. When looking at the genders separately, it became apparent that the males showed lower exertion than their female colleagues in almost all categories. This applies to four out of six dimensions in the tablet group, and in the other group, it applies to all categories.