Gender Differences in Usability and Enjoyment of VR Educational Games: A Study of SMILE™

This paper reports the results of a pilot study that investigated gender effects on usability and enjoyment of a virtual reality learning game played on three different interfaces. Two of the three interfaces are immersive (FLEX display system with PINCH glove interaction and FLEX display system with 6DOF wand interaction), and one is non-immersive (desktop computer with mouse+keyboard interaction). Findings indicate that girls and boys were equally adept at traveling through the virtual environment using all three interfaces. Girls took longer to complete object manipulation tasks than boys in all three conditions. Ratings of enjoyment, ease of use, and desire to play the game again differed by gender. With respect to fun, girls rated all three conditions highly, whereas boys rated the immersive conditions highly, and rated the non-immersive condition as less fun. With respect to ease of use, the boys and girls had opposite opinions about the FLEX+Wand and the Desktop. For the boys, the Wand was hardest to use and the Desktop easiest. In contrast, for the girls the Desktop was hardest and the Wand was easiest.