Immersive 3D Experience of Osmosis Improves Learning Outcomes of First-Year Cell Biology Students

Abstract biological processes that occur at the submicroscopic level, such as osmosis and diffusion, are inherently difficult for many students to conceptualize when traditional learning and teaching methods are used. This study introduced an immersive 320° three-dimensional (3D) experience of osmosis in which students became engaged with the cellular environment in a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment. The aims of this study were: 1) to explore whether a textbook diagram of osmosis recreated as an immersive 3D learning experience would be a meaningful tutorial activity for first-year cell biology students at a regional Australian university; and 2) to gather preliminary evidence of the utility of the tutorial by examining student performance data. The experience was perceived by students to be fun, useful, and educational. Performance of all students improved on a multiple-choice exam question, with the percentage of students choosing the osmosis distractor answer decreasing from 26 to 15% (p < 0.001). Those students with moderate to high base-level knowledge also performed better on short-answer questions about the cell membrane and osmosis (10–14% better, depending on base-level knowledge, p < 0.001). We give recommendations for future studies to investigate using immersive visualization in science teaching.