The role of background music used in online and VR-aided learning environments in enhancing the higher education students’ learning experience

This project aims at exploring the effects of background music in the context of online asynchronous learning. It also starts an exploration on how background music influences student learning experience in a virtual reality (VR) aided learning environment. Specifically, this research investigates how background music affects students’ perception of module information, understanding, memorisation and recall of module materials,and completion of activities and tasks within the module, in the context of online and VR-aided learning. The objectives of the projects are to explore:   1. Whether and how the presence and absence of music affect students’ perceptions and attitude towards the learning materials, as well as their learning experience in the online and VR-aided learning context,  2. How blending various types of background music (in terms of various structural characteristics such as genre and tempo) with the online learning materials as well as VR-aided learning materials affect students’ perceptions and attitude towards module materials and their learning experiences.