2026 Participants
Exploring Children’s Experiences of Awe While Playing Virtual Reality Video Games
Presenters: Jadyn Sheppard
Faculty advisor: Rachel Flynn
Virtual Reality Games (VRGs) are a fun, new pastime and emerging research explores how VRGs impact children’s mental health and emotional development. Our study aims to further explore if, and to what level, children experience the emotion of awe while playing VRGs. Awe is an emotion that is thought to be experienced strongly by children because of their capacity to learn and accommodate information and can be sparked by grand, vast experiences. We began by interviewing children about events in their lives in which they have experienced awe to better understand common patterns in childhood awe experiences. The VRGs played included nature and music, both events that are thought to be correlated with awe. Participants (n = 23, ages 8-13 years old) played Beat Saber and National Geographic for an average of 15 minutes each during the data collection process. After playing each game, we surveyed children on emotions that they experienced while playing, such as awe, joy, and fear, and experiences of factors of awe, such as altered time perception, physical sensations, and feelings of vastness. Our study showed that children did experience feelings of awe while playing both VRGs and that there are differences in the experiences of factors of awe. We aim to expand on the growing fields of work related to feelings of awe and effects of virtual reality game use in children by exploring positive feelings of awe during game play.
Past Participants
2025
Virtual playgrounds: Is active virtual reality the future of kids fitness?
Presenters: Gracie Cross and Jaqueline Chan
Faculty advisor: Rachel Flynn
Children enjoy technology; therefore, it has been used for various health interventions (Staino & Flynn, 2014). Research has shown traditional Active Video Games (AVG, e.g., Wii Fit) can promote physical activity for children and youth (Flynn et al., 2018). However, little research has examined commercially available Active Virtual Reality Games (AVRGs) for children. This poster reports on a pilot study exploring commercially available AVR game play on a Meta Quest headset for 9–13-year-old children at youth development programs. Our research question is: can children’s heart rate (HR) in VR reach similar levels as exercise? We coded heart rate data from the children’s gaming sessions and will discuss the findings of how heart rate increased during different games. The overall goal of these studies is to understand the type of AVRGs that are effective at engaging children while increasing their HR to a level that could be considered physical activity to inform youth, parents, educators and game designers about healthy technology choices.
The Role of Racial Socialization and Autonomy Support in Asian American Youth’s Identity and Mental Health
Presenters: Jade He and Ashley Lopez Molina
Faculty advisor: Yeram Cheong
Racial socialization reflects ways of promoting messages to understand and prepare for potential race-based challenges embedded in society (Hughes et al., 2006) and can be an adaptive process for youth of color’s ethnic-racial identity and mental health (Wang et al., 202). While understanding the role of adolescent’s agency is given more attention in the field, the extent to which adolescent-directed (“bottom-up”) racial socialization and the quality of parent-youth relationship predict youth development among Asian Americans is less understood.
Drawn from a larger Project ARISE dataset, the study included 460 adolescents who completed online surveys in 2021 (11-19 years old;48% girls, 68% Chinese American, 25% Korean American, 7% Filipinx American) Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that, controlling for participant gender, maternal education, and household income, adolescent-directed racial socialization was associated with lower bicultural identity harmony and more internalizing symptoms. Perceived parental autonomy support was associated with fewer internalizing symptoms, which showed marginally stronger association for mid-adolescence.
These findings echo the importance of promoting youth autonomy and agency considering the complexities of Asian American family processes. As youth become the socializing agent for their immigrant parents’ sense-making of the racial landscape in the U.S., we need to support their critical conversations by providing culturally responsive strategies that help youth negotiate their bicultural identity and cope psychologically.
2024
Virtual reality for children: A pilot study to examine how individual difference factors relate to game play
Faculty advisor/course instructor: Rachel Flynn
Entry #9
Active video games (AVGs) for VR platforms have potential to increase both exercise and cognition for children based on the immersive nature of the technology. Prior research indicates that technology usage among children is highly enjoyed. Little research, however, has examined commercially-available VR AVGs for neurotypical physically healthy children. The current research utilizes descriptive and correlational analysis to explore types of VR games children enjoy and what influences gameplay. There were 30 9 to 13-year-old participants (Average Age = 10 years old) that participated in the study at San Francisco-based youth development programs. Participants played three different VR games during one 1-hour session. Data was collected through use of surveys of prior media use, and feedback on VR game play. Interviews with children consisted of structured and semi-structured questions. Although analysis is ongoing, we found that children generally enjoyed playing the virtual reality games. Most (77%) participants rated VR exercise games as “a lot of fun” and 23% rated VR exercise games “kind of fun” on a scale of 1 (not at all fun) to 5 (very fun). In the future, we plan on analyzing how the difficulty of the game impacts enjoyment. Understanding the types of VR games children enjoy and how their individual differences effect gameplay will lead to further research on the effects of VR AVG’s on children’s cognitive and physical health.
2023
Virtual Reality for Children: An Exploratory Study
Faculty advisor/course instructor: Rachel Flynn
Entry #24
Virtual reality is an up and coming device for people of all ages to play games and engage in a completely new fashion from the comforts of ones own home. Still in its infancy stage, the use of its technology has already shown so many nuanced ways to engage and interact. Active video games offer numerous physical benefits for children and can also improve cognition. Very little research has examined commercially-available VR AVGs for neurotypical, physically healthy children. This study takes the first steps in utilizing descriptive and correlational research designs to explore which types of VR games children enjoy playing, and how children’s individual differences and innate cognitive abilities may directly impact how they play and engage in our world and the world of virtual reality. Data will be collected in a 1.5-2 hour session. Aside from consent/assent, there are three phases of the data collection. The first being baseline information of children’s individual differences. These factors include and are not limited to; Parental surveys, surveys on media influence, physical activity, measures of cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive tests. The second phase is VR game feedback and interest. Each child will have different natural interests that will directly affect their ability to learn and engage with each game. Phase 3 will consist of VR game play and debrief. This topic is timely for informing how VR fits into children’s digital landscape. Specifically, we selected a total of 20 Oculus VR games from the E for Everyone category of games, including puzzle solving, sports games, music games, drawing, meditation, etc. The current pilot research will fill a gap in the literature by using commercially available VR games to examine how children age 9 -13 years old respond physically to VR games.