An empirical examination of feedback : user control and performance in a hapto-audio-visual training environment

Utilising advanced technologies, such as virtual environments (VEs), is of importance to training and education. The need to develop and effectively apply interactive, immersive 3D VEs continues to grow. As with any emerging technology, user acceptance of new software and hardware devices is often difficult to measure and guidelines to introduce and ensure adequate and correct usage of such technologies are lacking. It is therefore imperative to obtain a solid understanding of the important elements that play a role in effective learning through VEs. In particular, 3D VEs may present unusual and varied interaction and adoption considerations. The major contribution of this study is to investigate a complex set of interrelated factors in the relatively new sphere of VEs for training and education. Although many of the factors appears to be important from past research, researcher have not explicitly studied a comprehensive set of inter-dependant, empirically validated factors in order to understand how VEs aid complex procedural knowledge and motor skill learning. By integrating theory from research on training, human computer interaction (HCI), ergonomics and cognitive psychology, this research proposes and validates a model that contributes to application-specific VE efficacy formation. The findings of this study show visual feedback has a significant effect on performance. For tactile/force feedback and auditory feedback, no significant effect were found. For satisfaction, user control is salient for performance. Other factors such as interactivity and system comfort, as well as level of task difficulty, also showed effects on performance.