Ready Student One: A framework for avatar design in Higher Education

Avatars are central to the social experience of a virtual world, yet little is known about what avatars university students naturally choose/design for use in their education – and the subsequent impact on their learning experiences. This paper describes work conducted across three years (2020-2022), where 266 students in total were free to use avatars in on-line lectures/seminars within a semester-long module about virtual reality. A mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis based on considerable observation, survey and interview data is used to propose a comprehensive framework for avatar design in Higher Education. The framework outlines four emergent themes (design, identity, interaction and anonymity) that characterise the student learning experience as an avatar. Future work should consider a broader range of students/avatars with greater interactivity possibilities, as well as the role of immersion.