Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Social virtual worlds provide students in remote online courses with a unique approach to collaborative work and social interactions. However, the use of social virtual worlds in online learning raises concerns about what privacy and ethical issues students might encounter. To shed light on this topic, we examined college students' ( N = 68) ethical and privacy concerns about using social virtual worlds in multiple class sessions, courses, universities, virtual environments, and technologies. Students revealed (a) struggling to manage their identity between classmates and strangers, (b) discomfort over violations of their avatars' personal space, (c) problems of vulnerable populations experiencing harassment, nudity, and loneliness, and (d) concern over companies tracking and storing user data. In addition, the students described the technological advantages that mitigated their privacy and ethical concerns. We discuss the implications of our findings for the future of collaborative learning and the design of social virtual worlds.
DOI: 10.1145/3757428
Language: English
Subfield: Human-Computer Interaction
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4415259505