High Schoolers Come to NJIT to Learn About Virtual Reality and Research

Students from the Hunterdon County Computer Science and Applied Engineering Academy came to NJIT on Nov. 22 to participate in a study of the impact of virtual reality (VR) on learning and knowledge retention..

The event, organized by NJIT professor Lori Watrous-deVersterre, had two goals. First, to expose high school students to the world of academic research, and second, to give NJIT professors and their graduate students access to high school students to take part in user studies.

“It’s a win-win for both sides,” Watrous-deVersterre said.

Watrous-deVersterre said the students took part in four different activities at the event. For two of the activities, students split into a control group (with no VR technology used) and others did the same using VR.

Watrous-deVersterre leads NJIT Ying Wu College of Computing’s High School Outreach Program, and regularly visits high schools to tell about the many educational and career opportunities in computing. She also shares her personal experience of working as a computing professional to demonstrate to students the types of opportunities available.

The research event with Hunterdon was a first for YWCC. Watrous-deVersterre hopes to have similar activities with other schools throughout the state. “It was a bit of a prototype,” she said.

NJIT professors Michael Lee and Eric Nersesian lead the students through a lesson on bubble sort, a computer science algorithm used to sort numbers, using a VR simulation designed and developed by Nersesian of the Ying Wu College of Computing and Jessica Ross of Hillier College of Architecture and Design. 

In addition to the bubble sort study, students also took part in a virtual reality simulator activity with professor Margarita Vinnikov. Students looked at user comfort during simulated driving through a roundabout when the user is a passenger and when the user is an active driver. A large display versus a head-mounted VR display such as Oculus Rift were used as part of the experiment. 

The simulations were part of a larger computer science educational initiative involving Lee and Vinnikov that was presented at this year’s Oculus Connect conference and funded in part by Facebook.

Jayson Phillips, a junior at Hunterdon County, said the bubble sort lesson was his favorite activity of the day. 

Alexis Colasurdo, also a junior at Hunterdon, said the driving simulation was her favorite part of the day. Colasurdo said her interest in computers began in middle school when she was required to take a coding class. Since then, she has sought additional instruction, including attending a summer camp focusing on cybersecurity.

“I’ve been looking into going to the Air Force Academy to study cybersecurity,” she said. 

The students also spent time talking to the professors about what it meant to do research as a career. Lee mentioned that it is important for students to have exposure to role models in various fields that they may not be aware of.

“I think it’s important that students today have the opportunity to meet with researchers to see how they do research using cutting-edge technology and computer interaction,” said Justin Montgomery, a computer science teacher at Hunterdon County.

Montgomery said he and Watrous-deVersterre will have NJIT’s research team follow up with the students in a few months to see what information they have retained to learn more about the impact of using the VR technology. “I think it’s important that students today have the opportunity to meet with researchers to see how they do research using cutting-edge technology and computer interaction,” he said.

For more information on YWCC’s High School Outreach Program visit https://computing.njit.edu/high-school-outreach-program