You are invited to participate in this study on the use of virtual reality in representing uncertain knowledge about cultural heritage sites. This study is being carried out as part of the requirements for a PhD in the field of Virtual Reality Interactive Narratives at Trinity College Dublin. This study has received ethical clearance from the Research Ethics Committee of Trinity College Dublin through application number #5671.
Participants will be recruited online, and are expected to own a Meta Quest 2 or 3 headset. Should they be interested to participate but do not have access to a suitable VR headset and are also residents of Malta, they can get in touch with the researcher who can host them at his institution in Malta, Saint Martin’s Institute of Higher Education.
Process: Participants will be wearing a Virtual Reality (VR) headset that will project a 3D virtual representation of the Hal Tarxien Prehistoric Complex. A short tutorial will introduce the participant to the interaction mechanisms that allow one to navigate through information on a virtual screen, hold, open, and read notebooks, take photos inside the virtual experience, record their voiced response, and teleport from one location to another. Participants will then be virtually teleported to a particular location in the site and tasked to look up artefacts and read author interpretations about them in order to inform themselves sufficiently to share their answer to up to three questions about the site and its artefacts. After each answer, a short questionnaire about their response will then be answered in the experience.
The VR experience is expected to last about 45 minutes. Short breaks can be taken in between if necessary. Having removed the VR headset, participants will answer a short questionnaire measuring seven aspects of the experience. Finally, participants will be presented with a claim about the information to which they would have been exposed in the experience and decide whether to sustain or rebut the claim. Should you consent, a follow-up review of the VR screen recording will be carried out to help interpret the participant’s choices and behaviour.
We expect the VR session to take about 45 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for the first questionnaire and 5 minutes for the claim sustain/rebuttal. The optional review of the recording would take an additional 30 minutes. In total, this will take between 60 and 90 minutes depending on your availability.
Data: : In the case where participants do not own a VR headset, contact details used for setting up a time and date that is convenient for both participant and researcher will be discarded once the experiment has been carried out and confirmed, but no longer than 30 days. Furthermore, their birth period, familiarity with technology, level of education, and country of origin will be collected to help understand your level of technological confidence and uncertainty avoidance at a cultural level, and then discarded.
Data gathered inside the VR experience will be automatically recorded in a database on the researcher’s laptop while printed/online questionnaires will be stored in an online spreadsheet via Google Forms. The identification code will only be used to link the responses between the in-experience and post-experience questionnaires, and will then be deleted, thus further ensuring anonymity. Only members of the study research team will have access to the spreadsheet and database data. We will be storing and processing this data in order to conduct research and will retain the collated (unidentifiable) data for 10 years for research integrity purposes, after which point it will be deleted.
Ethical Concerns: Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary, and you may withdraw at any time without penalty. We want to make you aware that the research involves the wearing of a VR headset that may cause cybersickness or nausea, while those prone to claustrophobia may feel its onset. Should this be the case, you are to call for assistance, which will be beside you all the time, to immediately help you remove the headset. A chair will be nearby to help you regain stability and calm down. You will be free to choose whether to resume, maybe after a short break, or to be released from the participation altogether, to which you have every right. In such case, all your information will be discarded.
If you have any questions or concerns about the study or the potential risks, please do not hesitate to ask. Participation may benefit the participants directly, as it can make them aware that uncertainty does not necessarily imply incompetence.
Right of Withdrawal: Your participation is entirely voluntary, and you can withdraw up to 30 days after the experiment when the questionnaire data will be collated and the identifying code discarded, which will preclude the ability to identify the data for deletion. Prior to those 30 days, simply contact the researcher by email providing the random number used to identify yourself when filling in the questionnaire and all data linked to that number will be deleted.
All questions are optional. Feel free to omit a response to any question; however, the researcher would be grateful if all questions are responded to. Once the study is ready for dissemination, we can provide the final report upon request.
Dissemination of Data: We plan to publish the results of our research in a doctoral dissertation with Trinity College Dublin, as well as in conferences and journals relevant to the field of study. The research results may also be published in a PhD dissertation at Trinity College Dublin. As participant personal information will be discarded within 30 days, no identifying data will be published. Finally, individual results may be aggregated anonymously and research reported on these aggregate results.
While it is unlikely that illicit activities would be disclosed, if you do so, we would be obliged to report them to the appropriate authorities.
During the experience, your voiced responses will be immediately transcribed and the text stored in the database while your voice will be discarded. An audio and screen recording of the VR session will be carried out to help researchers understand the data gathered as well as for an optional stimulated recall exercise, should you be willing to. This involves reviewing the VR screen recording with the researcher and explaining your reaction throughout the experience, and is expected to take 30 minutes. These recordings will be deleted no later than 30 days after the experience.
Conflict of Interest: This research contributes to satisfying degree requirements for PhD research. It also helps develop further the academic field of interactive digital narratives and their portrayal of complexity, particular the uncertainty of prehistoric cultural heritage. However, there is no known commercialization potential that we are aware of and thus no such conflict of interest exists.
If you have any queries, feel free to contact Jonathan Barbara on barbaraj@tcd.ie, and we will be happy to answer questions about the experiment.
Data Controllers: Trinity College Dublin
Data Protection Officer: Data Protection Officer, Secretary’s Office, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2 - dataprotection@tcd.ie