=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3751/short1
|storemode=property
|title=Virtual Reality to improve Metacognition in Special Needs Education
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3751/short1.pdf
|volume=Vol-3751
|authors=Fabio Bisogni,Beatrice Errico,Alessandro Frolli
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/dilend/BisogniEF24
}}
==Virtual Reality to improve Metacognition in Special Needs Education==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3751/short1.pdf
Virtual Reality to improve Metacognition in Special Needs
Education
Fabio Bisogni1,2, Beatrice Errico1, Alessandro Frolli2
1
Fondazione per la Ricerca sulla Migrazione e Integrazione delle Tecnologie (FORMIT),via Giovanni Gemelli Careri 11, Rome,
Italy
2
Department of International Humanities and Social Sciences, Rome University of International Studies, Rome (Italy)
Abstract
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, some school-related phenomena, such as dropout rates and the lack of
involvement of disadvantaged groups, have consistently increased. Families in socio-cultural disadvantage
conditions have faced difficulties in accessing essential services and participating in digital education. On
these premises, FOndazione per la RicercasullaMigrazione e IntegrazionedelleTecnologie (FORMIT)
developed CLASS, a 12-month project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and
Research, Directorate General for Research, that started on 6 November 2023 with the aim of comparing
three different teaching and learning methods, namely: one that focuses on helping students develop their
metacognition; one that involves the use of Virtual Reality (VR) to further strengthen this skill; and finally,
the traditional method. Key for the project’s success is the collaboration with three state secondary
technical and/or professional schools located in the suburbs of Rome, which will participate in the delivery
of the teaching and learning activities with a group of students from disadvantaged backgrounds or with
cognitive, affective and social needs. The research hypothesis of CLASS is that metacognitive strategies
improve the learning process and the engagement of socio-culturally disadvantaged students, and that the
use of VR can further enhance the benefits of this type of strategies.
Keywords
Special Needs, BES, Metacognitive learning, Virtual Reality, VR1
1. Background information to the project
The definition of the term “Special Educational Needs” (SEN)widely vary across countries
depending on each country’s legislation.
A student is commonly recognised to have SEN if he or she is not able to benefit from the school
education that is generally provided to anystudent of the same age without additional support or
adaptations in the content of studies.Therefore, SEN refers to specific educational needs that
students may have. In Italy,the equivalent term of SEN, BES (Bisogni Educativi Speciali), was
introduced by the Italian Ministerial Directive of December 27, 2012, entitled “Strumenti di
intervento per alunni con Bisogni Educativi Speciali e organizzazione territoriale per l’inclusione
scolastica” (lit. “Intervention mechanisms for students with Special Educational Needs and local
organisation for school inclusion”).
These needs can involve cognitive, emotional, and social aspects. In the former case, they are
considered permanent needs, while in the latter case, they are referred to as transient
needs(1).Within the realm of SEN, there are also students facing challenges related to social,
economic, emotional distress, or difficulties arising from a lack of knowledge of the Italian
language. Amongst various teaching models, the metacognitive approach seems to be particularly
effective to address the learning and inclusion challenges of students from disadvantaged
backgrounds (2, 3).Metacognitive teaching aims at developing both the "cold" metacognitive aspects
Proceedings of the Digital Innovations for Learning and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, May 24–25, 2024, Rome, Italy
b.errico@formit.org (B. Errico); alessandro.frolli@unint.eu (A. Frolli);fabio.bisogni@unint.eu (F. Bisogni);
0000-0002-2784-2887 (A. Frolli); 0009-0006-4658-7443(F. Bisogni);
© 2023 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
CEUR
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Workshop ISSN 1613-0073
Proceedings
(more specifically cognitive aspects such as working memory, attention, abstraction, problem-
solving, etc.) and the "hot" aspects (which include mentalisation and cross-cutting skills) (4).
Specifically, the ability of mentalisation allows individuals to perceive and interpret human
behaviours in terms of intentional mental states such as emotions, goals, or desires. These abilities
arise from any interaction with the environment and other factors, promoting various motivational
aspects that regulate the learning process (5). Transversal skills, or soft skills, refer to a set of
positive personal attributes and competencies that enhance interpersonal relationships, work
performance, and the social value of the individual (6). In the Italian school system, strategic for the
support and development of students’ soft skills are the "Pathways for soft skills and guidance”
(PCTO), which were established by the Italian Legislative Decree of April 15, 2005, No. 77. In 2020,
the Covid-19 pandemic caused a slowdown and, in some cases, the impossibility to activate such
training pathways, resulting in a disadvantage for students. For this reason, providing students with
tools that help optimise their learning process, as well as regulate their external responses and
develop transversal skills is very useful, especially in the case of socio-cultural disadvantage.
Moreover, quarantine and physical distancing policies amid the Covid-19 pandemic prevented us
from having social interactions and led us to reconsider new technologies. Therefore, it is crucial to
be able to support metacognitive teaching through technological tools such as Virtual Reality (VR).
Thanks to their immersive and interactive nature, VR environments have a strong potential in
educational contexts as they can be customised to allow learners to leverage their strengths,
enhancing task mastery through virtual experiential support (7). Due to the Covid-19 pandemic,
families in socio-cultural disadvantage conditions had to face multiple difficulties, both in accessing
essential services and in participating in digital education. In fact, students from families with lower
economic resources have encountered challenges accessing digital education due to the lack of
appropriate tools and effective internet connection. However, the opportunity to work with
technological tools, already experimented with in the educational context, could support
disadvantaged students by enhancing the metacognitive aspects of their learning process. In light of
these considerations, as a non-profit research organisation with solid know-how in education and
training, FOndazione per la RicercasullaMigrazione e IntegrazionedelleTecnologie
(FORMIT)developed“CLASS”, a 12-month project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education,
Universities and Research, Directorate General for Research through the Fund for Research in the
Economic and Social Field. Started on 6 November 2023, CLASS aims at studying, using, and
evaluating an effective educational model tailored to students with socio-cultural disadvantages
enrolled in three state secondary technical and/or professional schools located in the suburbs of
Rome.In particular, three teaching and learning methods will be compared: one involving the
implementation of procedures aimed at enhancing metacognitive aspects; another enhancing
metacognitive aspects through the use of Virtual Reality (VR); and finally, the traditional method.
The research hypothesis of CLASS is that metacognitive teaching improves the learning and
engagement of socio-culturally disadvantaged students, and that the use of VR can further enhance
the benefits of this type of teaching.
2. The project’s objectives and endpoints
The CLASS project aims to achieve the following objectives: (a) comparing the effectiveness
of traditional metacognitive teaching strategies with metacognitive teaching enhanced
through immersive VR; (b) developing a VR application to improving students' transversal
skills and mentalisation abilities.
3. The project’s main phases
The study timeline covers a period of one year and consists of six phases. Phase 1 consists
of students sampling.Itwas scheduled for November 2023/January 2024. Phase 2 –Students’
entry assessmentis expected to be run from January to February 2024.Phase 3 aims at
developing a novel VR app from January to March 2024. Phase 4will be the core of the
project, as it is related to the teachers’ training and the teaching activities involving the
students sampling, which will be delivered from February to May 2024. Phase 5will take
place in May and June 2024, to assess the students’ learning outcomes upon the completion
of the teaching and training activities. Finally, Phase 6will cover the period ranging from
June to early November 2024, to develop the project’s statistical analysis and come up with
the final research results, which will be thus communicated and disseminated.
Figure 1 The project’s phases
3.1. Phase 1
Started in November 2023, Phase 1 represents the official kick-off of the CLASS project,
aiming to identify the students sampling with socio-cultural disadvantage to be involved in
the teaching and training activities. Three state secondary technical and/or professional
schools located in the suburbs of Rome were chosen and asked for collaborationconsidering
their favourable environment for detecting socio-cultural distress situations. To achieve the
expected, the research team has developed a tailored study protocol employing Raven's
Matrices (excluding students with IQ < 90), as well as SES to identify students with socio-
cultural disadvantage. Additionally, K-SADS has been used to exclude other psychiatric
disorders. For each school, three classes of 12 students will participate to the three teaching
programmes that will be part of the experimental study. Two out of the three groups will
be the experimental groups working on procedures to enhance metacognitive aspects with
and without the use of VR, whereas the third one will be the control group that will work
with a traditional teaching model.
3.2. Phase 2
Once the students sampling is identified, the CLASS project will enter Phase 2, to assess the
initial skills of the students. A protocol including the following tests will be
thereforeimplemented: (a) the RF-Q8 will be used to assess students’ transversal skills and
mentalisation processes; (b) a post-evaluation questionnaireassessing students’ proficiency
in the teaching programme that was part of the previous quarter will be designed by the
teachers that will participate in the experimental study. AMOS will be used to evaluate
students’ metacognitive skills and motivation. The results stemming from this evaluation
will used as a baseline to evaluate the students’ increase in their academic learning upon
completion of the experimental study.
3.3. Phase 3
Phase 3will be instrumental for the delivery of one of the three teaching programmes that
are part of the experimental study, namely the use of VR to enhance students’
metacognitive aspects. A novel VR application will be thus developed, to use gaming
mechanisms to enhance students’ cross-cutting skills to increase their employment
opportunities on the job market.The app will be developed in compliance with
ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2017 –“Systems and software engineering”, that involve an initial
phase of planning (i.e., analysis of the requirements and architectural design), a second
phase of design, coding and mock-up, and finally a third phase of release. Phases 2 and 3
will be repeated at least three times for incremental optimisation.A compatibility test will
be performed before releasing the app in its final version.
3.4. Phase 4
Phase 4 will be the core of the CLASS project, as it is related to the teachers’ training and
the teaching activities involving the students sampling, which will be delivered from
February to May 2024. Teachers working in the three schools with which the research
team collaborates will be invited to join a one-month training programme focused on
metacognitive strategies, as well as the use of VR to enhance students’ mentalisation and
metacognitive skills.The training aims to provide teachers with a general overview of the
project, as well as with the theory at the base of metacognition and mentalisation, and the
models and strategies to be implemented for teaching and learning purposes at school.
Subsequently, a3-month piloting involving the students sampling will be initiated to deliver
the three teaching programmes that are part of the experimental study. In this regard, each
school will participate with three classes having students of the same age, who will be
provided with the following: a) a teaching programme involving the implementation of
procedures aimed at enhancing metacognitive aspects (experimental group 1); b) a teaching
programme aiming to enhance metacognitive aspects and improve transversal skills
through the use of VR (experimental group 2); c) a teaching programme delivered by using
traditional teaching methods (control group).
3.5. Phase 5
Once the teaching and training activities are over, the research team will enter Phase 5, to
assess the students’final learning outcomes to compare them with the initial assessment
carried out in Phase 2. To achieve the expected, the same protocol used in Phase 2 will be
applied.
3.6. Phase 6
The assessment carried out in Phases 2 and 5 will be finally elaborated through statistical
analysis in Phase 6, which represents the final evaluation of the experimental study. In this
regard, the most effective teaching methods will be verified and an internal validation of
the implemented protocols will be carried out. This analysis will be instrumental to develop
tailored lessons learnt and best practices stemming from the project activities, which will be
useful to identify areas for improvement of the proposed model and deliver ad hoc
recommendations to be implemented to replicate it.The identification process will start
with a set of brainstorming sessions that the project team will hold using the Delphi
method, where a rating (on a scale from 1 to 9) will be given to the relevance of each
proposed recommendation, to come up with a final ranking. The selected recommendations
will be developed to address different categories of stakeholders, which have been primarily
identified in schools and policy makers.
References
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Legge 170. Trento: Erickson.
[2] Partanen, P., Jansson, B., Lisspers, J., &Sundin, Ö. (2015). Metacognitive strategy training adds
to the effects of working memory training in children with special educational
needs. International Journal of Psychological Studies, 7(3), 130-140.
[3] Hessels, M. G., Hessels-Schlatter, C., Bosson, M. S., & Balli, Y. (2009). Metacognitive teaching in
a special education class. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 8(2), 182-201.
[4] Pintrich, P. R. (2002). The role of metacognitive knowledge in learning, teaching, and
assessing. Theory into practice, 41(4), 219-225.
[5] Fonagy, P., Campbell, C., &Luyten, P. (2017). Mentalizing.
[6] Dixon, J., Belnap, C., Albrecht, C., & Lee, K. (2010). The importance of soft skills. Corporate
finance review, 14(6), 35.
[7] Lee, E. A. L., & Wong, K. W. (2008). A review of using virtual reality for learning. Transactions
on edutainment I, 231-241.