Exploring the Mediating Role of Student Engagement in the Relationship Between Virtual Reality Interactivity and Creativity in a Project-Based Learning Environment

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) environment, due to its immersive and interactive characteristics, can effectively enhance learners' on-site experience, and gradually become a new educational scene. Existing studies have shown that compared with traditional teaching environments, learning methods using VR technology can significantly improve the teaching effect, but the internal mechanism of promoting the development of creativity is not clear. Therefore, this study carried out a quasi-experimental study under the framework of project-based learning (PBL), and set two sets of control conditions of VR-PBL and traditional PBL to systematically collect learners' participation and creativity performance data. A standardized scale was used to measure learners' perception of VR interactivity and their multi-dimensional learning input (emotional and cognitive dimensions), and an expert scoring method was used to evaluate the creativity test works of painting. The results show that: (1) VR technology significantly improves the level of learning engagement by enhancing interactivity; (2) Learning engagement is positively correlated with creativity performance; (3) Learning engagement had a partial mediating effect between VR interactivity and creativity performance. This study provides a new perspective for the design of VR-based educational intervention programs and provides a practical reference for fostering creativity through optimizing interactive learning environments.