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This paper presents empirical results from an exploratory study conducted in an authentic educational situation with preservice education students enrolled in an undergraduate course, which was partially taught in Second Life. The study investigated the effect of environment design on presence, learning outcomes and the overall experience of the students. Two different educational virtual environments (a traditional university auditorium and an open‐air setting) were designed and presented to different groups of students (n = 51). Results indicate that students' experience from the educational activities, their attitudes toward the environment and the induced sense of presence are not affected by the design of the educational setting. Learning outcomes seem to be slightly better in virtual educational settings that replicate traditional educational settings. Experience shows that undergraduate university classes can be successfully taught in Second Life and such environments elicit satisfaction, positive experiences and attitudes and high levels of social presence from the participants. Course design in a Multi‐User Virtual Environment (MUVE) should take into account the time and training necessary for all students to become familiar with the virtual environment and possible time losses due to technical issues. This study could act as support to construct and test hypotheses regarding the role of educational setting design in teaching and learning in MUVEs.

The aim of the present study (n = 113) was to examine how (objective and subjective) information on peers' preparation, confidence, and past performance can support students in answering correctly in audience response systems (aka clickers). The result analysis shows that in the “challenging” questions, in which answers diverged, students who received additional information about peers' self‐reported preparation and/or confidence outperformed students who were only given the objective percentage with or without past performance feedback. In addition, students expressed a positive attitude towards the activity, commenting its usefulness in better understanding course material and identifying misconceptions.

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