Literary Reading by Virtual Reality: The Role of Empathy in Behavioral Intention and Reading Comprehension

Abstract

Past studies have addressed the relationships between individuals’ perceived empathy and their behavioral intention. Individuals’ empathy towards narratives also benefits their performance of reading comprehension. This study therefore aimed to explore the role of learners’ empathy in their behavioral intention and reading comprehension when engaging in a learning activity of literary reading by virtual reality (VR) with a head-mounted display. There were 38 higher education students participating in this study with quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (interview) data collection. The results showed that the students’ perceived empathy, intention to read literary by VR, and intention to read original literary were enhanced after the learning activity of literary reading by VR. The VR learning system was also helpful for the students to understand the narrative context of the literacy. Compared with the affective empathy the students expressed, their cognitive empathy played a more important role in the behavioral attitudes. However, this study found that there was no relationship between the students’ perceived empathy and their performance of reading comprehension. Based on the findings, this study proposed the narrative design for the VR system of literary reading. The implication for exploiting multimedia learning theory to explore the influences of reading literacy by VR on learners’ reading performance was also addressed.

Keywords

• virtual reality
• empathy
• behavioral attitudes
• reading comprehension