Virtual tours as emerging technologies to engage children and youth with their country’s historical conflicts

Nicolaidou, Iolie (author), Zupančič, Rok (author), Kasapović, Mak (author)

Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly used for visiting historic places. Research on VR experiences in dark tourism (that focuses on mortality) focuses almost exclusively on adults. No studies were found that used virtual tours to engage children with their own country’s conflicts. The present study addresses this gap by designing and developing virtual tours in four cities of Europe with a troubled past. Virtual tours engage children and youth in historical conflicts using multi-perspective storytelling. The aim of this pre-test post-test comparative case study is to examine the change on students’ perceptions of their country’s troubled past after their interaction with a virtual tour of their capital. A secondary aim is to document students’ evaluation of the virtual tour. A questionnaire examining students’ perceptions was completed before and after students’ individual interaction with a virtual tour. Participants included 360 students (212 from Cyprus, 42 from Germany, 63 from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and 44 from Kosovo). Findings indicate a statistically significant positive change in perceptions of troubled pasts for primary/secondary students from Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Germany. Preliminary results are promising and indicate the effectiveness of virtual tours as tools that can have an effect on students’ perceptions of troubled pasts, particularly for children rather than young adults. Students’ evaluation of the virtual tours was positive, irrespectively of participants’ age, indicating high acceptability.

• Language: English
• Keywords: history, children, virtual reality, troubled past, multiple perspectives, conflict resolution
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2022
• Number of pages: Str. 164-183
• Numbering: Vol. 17, no. 21
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-142706
• UDC: 004.946:94-053.6
• ISSN on article: 1863-0383
• DOI: 10.3991/ijet.v17i21.32853
• COBISS.SI-ID: 130279171

Copyright

Podatek o licenci CC BY 4.0 je naveden na pristajalni strani članka – glej izvorni URL zgoraj. (Datum opombe: 20. 5. 2025)

• Publication date in RUL: 21.11.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: International journal of emerging technologies in learning
• Shortened title: Int. j.: emerg. technol. learn.
• Publisher: International Federation of Engineering Education Societies
• ISSN: 1863-0383
• COBISS.SI-ID: 7169353

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: zgodovina, otroci, navidezna resničnost

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: H2020
• Project number: 769252
• Name: Strengthening European integration through the analysis of conflict discourses: revisiting the past, anticipating the future
• Acronym: RePAST

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P5-0206
• Name: Obramboslovje