The Impact of Locomotion Methods of VR on Presence and Anxiety Levels in Foreign Language Vocabulary Acquisition

Virtual Reality (VR) has seen widespread use in education, including science, environmental, and disaster preparedness education, offering immersive learning experiences unattainable in traditional classrooms. While VR allows users to interact within virtual spaces, limited physical space requires alternative navigation methods. This study investigates how different locomotion methods in VR affect presence, anxiety, and learning outcomes. The research creates a virtual space surpassing classroom size, with participants utilizing different locomotion methods—real walking and teleportation. The results show that real-walking participants exhibited significantly better English vocabulary learning outcomes. Meanwhile, there is no significant impact on the sense of presence due to locomotion methods, indicating that VR can maintain a sense of presence regardless of movement mode. However, the teleportation group experienced higher anxiety levels than the real-walking group. This research contributes to understanding the complex interplay of locomotion methods, presence, anxiety, and learning outcomes in VR environments. It provides insights for designing effective VR-based language learning systems and informs educators and researchers working on immersive learning environments.