Eugene Ohu, a researcher and faculty at Lagos Business School (LBS), has received a $234,000 grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. (TWCF) to conduct two-year virtual reality research.
According to a notice published on the LBS website on Monday, the research project is entitled “Teaching Children Empathy and Compassion through Virtual Reality Games” will explore the potentials of virtual reality (VR) for character development.
The grant was awarded under TWCF ‘s Global Innovations for Character Development (GICD) initiative.
Mr. Ohu, a senior lecturer, runs the Human-Computer Interaction ( HCI) Lab at Lagos Business School, where he explores the implications of immersive, interactive and prospective technologies such as computers, mobile devices and virtual reality ( VR) for character development , learning, behavioral change, well-being and productivity.
The TWCF-funded two-year intervention and study project aims to establish the characteristics of solidarity and compassion in a complex society such as Nigeria, where there are numerous manifestations of political, ethnic, social and economic identities. Targeting an initial group of adolescents who make up more than 60 per cent of Nigeria ‘s population, the study aims to explore the ability of VR to improve awareness of the personalities of those other than ourselves.
Speaking about the research project, Mr. Ohu said “It will be an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience where teenagers take the perspectives of ethnic groups different from theirs, to appreciate their identity and share in their sufferings. We also hope to train teachers at the study schools on the new VR teaching models, so as to incorporate them into the Civics and Social Studies curriculum of secondary schools”
“Although VR is fun, my research collaborators and I have broader and more ambitious goals which should see a greater deployment of VR in teaching, learning and development at all stages of a person’s life. I particularly want to see it deployed as a complementary learning resource in training at the Lagos Business School”, he added.
Immersive VR are computer-generated environments where users enter a digital version of the real world where they can communicate with objects and others. This provides an opportunity to create a more personalized and stimulating learning experience.
Virtual Reality is considered by many to be the biggest thing after the internet, and its use is expected to increase in the coming years. It is therefore imperative that stakeholders in character development and education take steps to consider the advantages of VR, and beyond academia, of teaching cultural competencies in today’s interconnected global society.
Other collaborators in the project include Judith Okonkwo, founder of Imisi3D, an Extended Reality creation lab in Yaba, Lagos, and Karen Schrier, a digital games expert at Marist College, USA.
