Original title: Exploring the Role of Transportation and Narrative Persuasion in Historical Virtual Reality from a Democratic Education Perspective
Lea Frentzel-Beyme, Hannah Decker, Nicole Krämer · September 2026
Schools use virtual reality to help students explore the past. However, experts worry that being deeply absorbed in a digital story might stop students from thinking critically, leading them to simply accept whatever the story tells them. To test this, researchers had people try the Anne Frank House VR experience. They looked at transportation, which is how deeply someone gets mentally pulled into a narrative. They discovered that being deeply absorbed into the story was positively linked to stronger emotional reactions and beliefs that matched the story, such as supporting refugees. Yet, this immersion did not link to higher factual or perceived knowledge. VR might not teach facts, but it can engage users with important social and political topics.
You follow a recipe to bake a cake. You become so focused on the steps that you feel a sense of achievement. But later, when someone asks you the ingredients, you cannot list them. You remember the feeling of success but not the facts. In this paper, the VR experience is like following a recipe: participants got emotionally absorbed and their beliefs shifted, but they did not recall specific historical facts.
For educators and students using virtual reality in history class, this matters because VR can influence political opinions even when it doesn't teach historical facts. Teachers may need to balance emotional engagement with critical thinking to ensure students don't uncritically absorb a single perspective.
This study only measured correlations, so we cannot say that VR causes belief changes. It used one specific VR experience about Anne Frank, so results may not apply to other historical topics. The sample size was 106, which is relatively small for drawing strong conclusions. Additionally, the study did not test whether any alternative interpretations could explain the findings.
Ask anything about this paper. Answers come from its abstract, and say so when the abstract doesn't cover your question.
Exploring the Role of Transportation and Narrative Persuasion in Historical Virtual Reality from a Democratic Education Perspective — Lea Frentzel-Beyme, Hannah Decker, Nicole Krämer — PsyArXiv — doi:10.31234/osf.io/4zxqn_v4
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.