The Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE)

«Accepted for Publication»

This paper is a report on an exploratory study to decipher differences in students' preferences related to environmental settings and avatar realism within a virtual world e-learning system, among online-only and blended learning cohorts. Two cohorts of instructional technology graduate students took part in the study. Each cohort had been enrolled in courses in the same program at a mid-size public U.S. university. For both groups, all online and blended courses utilized a common virtual world environment to allow students access to course-specific and shared learning materials, synchronous and asynchronous communication tools, and online library resources. A self-report measure was used to solicit preferences within the virtual environment related to cross-cohort activities, classroom boundaries and common areas, and avatar realism and customization. Results of the data analysis show significant differences between online-only and blended learning cohorts in their preferences related to virtual classroom boundaries and avatar realism.