Scale Worlds | VR | NC State

About

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Scale World project investigates how an immersive environment can enhance students’ understanding of scientific scale. Scale Worlds’ interdisciplinary research team developed a learning environment where users experience size comparisons that are impossible in daily life. Scale Worlds allows students to “shrink” to the size of an atom or “grow” to the scale of a planet by powers of ten, providing an embodied experience that fosters a more accurate mental model of the scientific world.

Scale Worlds aligns with the crosscutting concept of scale, proportion, and quantity, as outlined by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

Impact

Over 400 elementary, middle school, high school, community college, and undergraduate students, as well as members of the community, have experienced Scale Worlds in research and outreach events.

Two-thirds of elementary and middle school students reported learning about scientific scale after experiencing Scale Worlds.

93% of middle school students and 83% of undergraduates reported experiencing awe while using Scale Worlds.

Undergraduate students increased their understanding of scale after using Scale Worlds, to a statistically significant degree and with a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.835).

Publications

The project team has published in three disciplinary areas: STEM education, human factors and HCI (human-computer interaction) and design.

STEM Education Publications

Harper-Gampp, T., Delgado, C., You, H., Peterson, M., & Chen, K.B. (in press). Measuring size and scale: The development and validation of the Assessment of Size and Scale Cognition (ASSC). Research in Science Education.

Harper-Gampp, T., Delgado, C., Alharbi, K., Peterson, M., & Chen, K. B. (2024, July). Does shrinking and growing in VR induce awe among young students? In R. Lindgren, T. Asino, E. A. Kyza, C. Looi, D. T. Keifert, & E. Suárez (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (pp. 2447–2448) International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Delgado, C., Harper-Gampp, T., Peterson, M., & Chen, K. B. (2023). Virtual reality induces awe but possibly not accommodation. In P. Blikstein, J. Van Aalst, R. Kizito, & K. Brennan (Eds.), Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences – ICLS 2023 (pp. 1050–1053). International Society of the Learning Sciences. https://doi.org/10.22318/icls2023.115633

Spain, R., Goldberg, B., Bailey, S., Fussell, S., Bayro, A., Hale, K., Jones, A., Regina, R., Thomas, B., Owens, K., Lau, N., Dam, A., Chen, K., Sturgeon, L., Vaughn-Cooke, M., & Enebechi, N. C. (2023). Human Factors Extended Reality Showcase. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 67(1), 1495–1500. https://doi.org/10.1177/21695067231192432

Gampp, T., Delgado, C., Peterson, M., & Chen, K. B. (2022). Embodied cognition in virtual reality to support learning of scale. In C. Chinn, E. Tan, C. Chan, & Y. Kali (Eds.), International collaboration toward educational innovation for all: Overarching research, development, and practice (pp. 1900–1901). International Society of the Learning Sciences. https://dx.doi.org/10.22318/icls2022.1900

Delgado, C., & Peterson, M. (2018). An enhanced framework for scale cognition leveraging visual metaphor theory and analogical reasoning theory. In J. Kay & R. Luckin (Eds.), Rethinking learning in the digital age: Making the learning sciences count. 13th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), volume 3 (pp. 1607–1608). London, UK: International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Human Factors and HCI Publications

Wu, L., Chen, K., Peterson, M., & Delgado, C. (2024). Sense of presence and the illusion of self-scaling in virtual learning environments. In P. Zaphiris, A. Ioannou, R. A. Sottilare, J. Schwarz, & M. Rauterberg (Eds.), HCI International 2024 – late breaking papers. HCII 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15378 (pp. 195–220). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-76815-6_14

Cheng, F., Harper-Gampp, T.,  Planchart, R., Dunning, M., Peterson, M., Delgado, C., & Chen, K. B. (2024). Study of graphic armatures, multimodal cues and numeric measures in virtual reality on learners’ performance and workload. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813241269236

Chen, K. B., Harper-Gampp, T., Wu, L., Delgado, C., & Peterson, M. (2024). Learning scale in virtual reality: Human factors, deployment, and perception of immersive technology at a public middle school. Proceedings of the 2024 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813241265650

Wu, L., Chen, K. B., Sekelsky, B., Peterson, M., Harper-Gampp, T., & Delgado, C. (2023, March). Shrink or grow the kids? Scale cognition in an immersive virtual environment for K-12 summer camp (poster). In 2023 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW) (pp. 721–722). IEEE. DOI: 10.1109/VRW58643.2023.00203

Wu, L., Sekelsky, B., Peterson, M., Gampp, T., Delgado, C., & Chen, K. B. (2023). Scale Worlds: Iterative refinement, evaluation, and theory-usability balance of an immersive virtual learning environment. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 67(1), 2382–2388. https://doi.org/10.1177/21695067231192534

Wu, L., Sekelsky, B., Peterson, M., Gampp, T., Delgado, C., & Chen, K. B. (2022). Immersive virtual environment for scale cognition and learning: Expert-based evaluation for balancing usability versus cognitive theories. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 66(1), 1089–1093. https://doi.org/10.1177/1071181322661094

Design Publications

Planchart, R., Dunning, M., Peterson, M., Delgado, C., & Chen, K. B. (2024). Isolating and addressing theoretically-grounded limitations from the rapid translation of interaction design across media platforms. DRS 2024: Resistance, recovery, reflection, reimagination. Design Research Society. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.1187

Sekelsky, B., Peterson, M., Delgado, C.,and Chen, K. B. (2023). Preserving theoretically-grounded functions across media platforms in interaction design. In D. Sainz Molestina, L. Galluzzo, F. Rizzo, & D. Spallazzo (Eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-changing design. International Association of Societies of Design Research. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.500