Information retention's relationships with flow, presence and engagement in guided 3D virtual environments

The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation of different variables with information retention in guided 3D virtual learning environments by employing three experimental designs. In each experiments, different participants were included in the same population and different variables were considered. Information retention test, flow, presence, engagement scales were used as data collection tools. Namely measures of flow, presence and engagement were examined to see their correlation with retention in experiment 1, 2 and 3. As a result, not the total score of flow but focused attention, enjoyment and skill dimensions has a weak but significant correlation with information retention, while the challenge has a moderate and significant negative correlation. In the second experiment, retention had a significant, low-level relationship with teaching presence and cognitive presence, but it did not have a similar relationship with social presence. In the third experiment, information retention significantly correlated with affective and cognitive engagement, but not with behavioral engagement. Although the three studies' participants were from the same population, It was seen that the differences in the level of relationship between information retention and the variables studied in each study. Nevertheless, it was found that the levels of flow, presence and engagement of students are important for information retention in a guided 3D virtual learning environment. The study is thought to guide researchers to design 3D virtual learning environments for different purposes, considering these variables.